Argile Ecossais Wallanklagebank

the traveling begins!

2011-06-22T16:05:00.003-06:00

it has begun, ive officially started traveling. no more work for a months ive already visited family/friends in eastern montana. my french friend Alice was @ her old host families in loring, mt so i visited all of them. it is amazing to only hang out with someone once every three or four years and still be really good friends. you know you have a real friend when you can do that, no matter how much you each change.

i also got to get my branding fix in saskatchewan, just over the border @ my step dads and see all the peps up there. that whole part of the country is really green which rarely happens so thhat was good.

on my way to havre i got pulled over for speeding. when the cop asked me who my mom wasi said brenda murdock and then he was like ok i gave you a warningand and tell your mom hi from joel. aparently she got to know him while she was a cop in the countynext door.

alot of my trip was like this. i love being able to name drop your own name. where im from in eastern montana murdock is like a magic word you might not know the person, but the know your grandpa or mom etc. crossing the border is easier, ive gotten out of more than one speeding ticket. god kept using this principle to show me what it is like to be a sonin hiskingdom. one name opens the doors, brings provision. in reality, because this name lives in me i already have access to everything i could ever need or want. its so fun, you get stuff like totally free trips to europe. YES JESUS!!!

this brings us to where i am now. as of right now im in an airpor in connecticut waiting for someone to cometake me to vermont. sweet! i finally got my list of people ill be leading in france. 9 girls and 3 guys, highschoolerssome from new york and some from all over the place. ill start my training. as long as i dontloose any bodies children i think ill be fine.

wierdly, i was expecting to be flying through new york but ended up going through detroit,mi. ...start spreading the news...im leaving today.. im gonna be a part of it deroit, detroit? wha wha fail, motown? they actually have a huge ass airport, likeits really big and there were lots and lots of people. im trying toupload a movie of it to utube. it was special. anyways, i should add to the like 3 hrs of sleep ive gotten so far today. peace

French-Malgache Food!

2011-06-13T18:33:00.005-06:00

I am restarting my blog. Yes, wake up in Jesus Name!

I've decided, by inspiration of a blogging friend of mine, Jess Strabava, to blog about the free trip I'm taking to France and I am doing the pre-trip blog right now as I eat food I learned how to make from my "French" host mom from Madagascar. Yum!

I'm busy thinking about what I have to pack and waiting to hear back from the orginization about when I fly out. I fly out of Missoula in a week and they still haven't contacted me with any more vital info like when I'm leaving, what I need to pack, who my students are going to be, where exactly in Europe I will be going-so I have time to research and at least give the impression that I know about where I will be leading the kids.

Yeah, so I got "hired" to lead a group of U.S. high school students to France and Germany for three weeks this summer. Freaking out!

Here's the story, One day in late March I was like, "Yo, Jesus, Big Guy." (We're real tight so I can talk to him like that.) "I'm kinda bored, it would be cool to have something to look forward to." I just kinda threw up a mini-prayer, not even expecting anything. I guess I just wanted to say that to God. I do this all the time, just say stuff to Him.

So a couple days later, I was on Facebook, where I spend like 83% of my time anyways, when I saw an ad about traveling with students or something. I thought that was cool so I checked it out. Well, come to find out I was like half an hour from the deadline for submitting your application to be a group leader, but they said to call if you were interested. And I was really interested, they said they would pay for me to get from New York to France and back if I were a group leader. SWEET! So I called and they said if I got an application in by the end of the week they would consider me. They said they would contact me in April or the first week in May if they were interested in my leading a group of kids abroad.

So I got my application done, had my super sweet awesome reference people hook me up-Jason S., Jessica K., and Nicole G. and got everything send in about two days late. (Just like when I was in college.) And then I waited. They said if I didn't hear anything back that was good, and meant they had gotten my application.

I was pretty unsure about this trip, praying about it I had some hesitation, mostly about cost. I'm wanting to save up for some other traveling (missions stuff) which I deem more important and was just worried that paying to get to New York and Vermont (where the training is) and for the one meal/day would cost too much to justify going on this trip. I saw this trip as potentially frivolous and not really in God's plan since I was already more sure about other things (missions stuff).

Even though, I don't believe God sees giving me an almost free trip to work with students where I won't be doing missions style work ungodly, I was still concerned. I even prayed that they don't call me back if I wasn't supposed to go. So when the middle of May rolled around, I knew they weren't interested in me going and felt a sense of relief. No money problems!

Then the third week in May happened. Having totally written of this trip and being completely ok about not going, I prayed "God, I'm kinda bored. I want something to look forward too." again without even remembering the last time. The next day, I got a phone call and the guy said he wanted to interview me for the trip! I was shocked and kinda freaked out. He even was willing to interview me that night! That sounds like God rearranged someone's schedule to get me a spot!

So, still nervous about the money thing I interviewed. I had to talk about what I would do if I lost one of my kids at the airport, speak French and explain how to handle Mexican host parents finding condoms in one of my kids purses and thusly thinking they were housing a girl of ill-repute (apparently that happens :/). He said he would call me back with their decision. And then, I didn't have time to ask about the money/compensation.

Nextly (is this a word?), I went to my team leader of the very schedule sensitive company I work for (if you need a job I will hook you up, use me as a reference, I get money.) and asked them if I could get time off in a couple weeks for five weeks. etc etc.

I got a call back a couple of days later and they said they were officially offering me a job to travel with students in France and Germany for three weeks and that they were going to pay for all my expenses from Missoula to Vermont to New York to Europe and all the way back to MSO! And they are throwing 100$ per week on top of that. SWEET, no money out of my pocket! All I have to pay for is souvenirs. I've been to France three times. I need no souvenirs. Score! And apparently my boss talked to her boss who talked to her boss and they decided to give me time off! I'm even taking an extra week off before to go back home to visit family and Alice, my French friend who is visiting her host family, just a few miles from my ranch! WINNING! Hopefully, I'll get to meet my host family from Lyon!

Now I just need to pack, get a medical checkup and get details about my trip. And word to the wise, be careful about telling Jesus you are bored. He is not ok with boredom and will deal with it appropriately!

Glimpses of the most recent year of Clay's life...

2008-08-21T02:22:00.004-06:00

A year has gone by and I find my self bored at 2:22am the week before school starts needing to find something to do until I work off the energy I gained from my nap earlier tonight while watching the Olympics.

So, because the last time I blogged for real was in Europe, I just want to let you know I did make it back to the US of A with only minor return culture shock. Which was cool.

Anyways, finishing up on Europe... after my pilgrimage to many important Lutheran sites in Germany and Rome and Athens I was ready to go home to a place where I understood their language and culture. The shocking thing to me was that I was thinking those thoughts on the flight from Greece to Paris. I had grown comfortable with France and la vie francaise. I spent a few last days with my Beautiful host family and euro friends then headed back to the states on my Birthday. My 22nd birthday was the longest of my life.

That summer I worked on the Murdock Ranch (home home) North of Malta, MT. I also visited my Dad and his side of the family in South Dakota.

I took classes again at UM, continued as a student leader for Chi Alpha Campus Ministries, and got my job at the front desk of the Quality Inn back.

I started dating Jen Reger (answer to question in previous blog.) I guess she took me as some suave and mysterious French (-speaking) guy that she only knew a little b4 i shipped off to France. She was the Art Major girl that helped me paint my house.

Then God rocked my world at Encounter Weekend. This was in the Fall. I took alot of down time in this knee-buckling time of my life, while God did some awesome things for me. Shook alot of people's hands and was floored at the things that were happening in my life. There were lots of ups and downs at this time of my life, but things have since become generally more stable. (ok lots of inside jokes there). Ok, writing about that makes me HAPPY.

I finished dating Jen Reger.

I have also decided to just finish up my French Degree and change my History Major to a Minor and to Drop out of the Honors College.

God planted the dream in my heart to go to Brazil and do Missions... So I have started to learn Portuguese!!! Please pray into that all...

This summer I didn't work much the first part of the summer. I wanted to do Construction, but that just didn't work out with me between going home for Cole's Graduation (my little Salutatorian Brother!!!), Visiting Ellie and Cathrine in NYC and a slower job market.

Kathleen, a platonic friend, informed me that she was moving in with me after graduation. This infact did happen and my life will never be the same again.

Alice, my best friend from France, came to visit me for a week in Missoula. We hung out, camped at glacier and relived our many memories from studying together in Highschool and Lyon.

But I did get an amazing job at the front desk of the Holiday Inn Downtown. There have been sooo many blessings in this job. I get tips, speak French like once a week, and meet famous people (Sawyer Brown band, the Prince of S. Africa stayed with us!)

Jess was back long enough to plan her wedding and get hitched to Tomas Strbavy. Just kind of a cute couple. We (including many who are reading this) had alot of fun seeing them again/for the first time before they had to head back to Slovakia Land.

I also started hanging out with some new friends, RaShelle Soper from Nebraska and Allie Harrison from Missoula. RaShelle and I recently went to a Revival like conference in Spokane. Soooo Good.

Murdock comes from Gaelic "Murchadh" meaning "Sea Warrior."

And to top it all off, Kenny Reichelt, another of my Best friends from Highschool moved in with me here at my aunt and uncle's. Together Kenny and I made up 100% of the male populaiton of our graduating class and 33% total.

Yours truely, Moist Dirt Scottish Sea Warrior Man.

2008-02-15T21:55:00.000-07:00

This blog sucks, why doesn't anyone write anything on it. He must have a life. IDK. Dude. Lame.

Thanksgiving.

2007-11-22T20:19:00.000-07:00

So I'm realizing today that I have A lot to be thankful for...

Jesus died for me, and The Father loves me, and Holy Spirit is the comforter.

I'm working today 3-11pm but totally in a good mood. Brandon and his mom, Staci, brought me an awesome Thanksgiving dinner. She even wrapped things individually and then they stayed while I ate!!! I can't wait to get to the pies.

We just got a foot of snow this weekend an Missoula is beautiful!!! There were weird flashes of green and blue light off and on during that Saturday night. We aren't sure what that was. Lightning while it was snowing?

I was just reading in our front desk log that this snow caused lots of problems here at the motel. Everything having to do with electricity went wrong. Poor lady. The next night's graveyard shift was also eventful for her. That's all I'm going to say. Its been some very entertaining reading while at work.

So the night after the foot of snow some friends and I decided to go sledding. Very fun. We found a spot near "Mansion Hights" with a pond at the bottom... There was a lot of snow and a really wide trail half way down so we "weren't worried." We went down that for a while, then another spot then went back to the pond one and decided to make chains as we slid down the hill. the first chain 5 tubes 6 people went well. For the next chain i sat on top of the front person. and we started going. but then half way down we got bunched up and i fell off. but the people in the back were still coming. Everyone hung on well and in no time the very back person was the very front person but sliding backwards... towards the pond. I jumped back on after i saw they were still going but backwards. Then I jumped off when i realized that they weren't making any effort to stop sliding down the hill as they got close to the pond. They all went in one after another, one still hanging onto another. Woops. That was our last run. Afterwards, we went to the guys house and had hot chocolate and i studied for my Greek test and found out that i really like U2. We are going to play U2's song 'One' for guitar class.

I wish you all a Very Happy Turkey Day.

Clay's life... One year ago...

2007-10-04T21:06:00.001-06:00

So I thought it would be hilarious to add an unfinished blog from about a year ago, also the last time I attempted bloging. 2 questions... Where were you last year at this time. And bonus points to who ever can think of who the mystery person is that I started to blog about at the end of this blog...

Real Blog...

Ok, so I normally dont appologize for not blogging, but I still haven't caught you all up on my Euro Trip!!! I'M SORRY!!!

So, well, I'm back from France (I miss it ALOT). I had an awesome summer back at home with my family. And I'm a senior at UM continueing French and History. For classes i'm taking History of Colonial America and History of the 50's. French Lit of the 20th cent. Guitar. and Ancient Greek... Again. I think i wrote them from order of worst to best how they are going.

Besides School I'm a Student Leader for my Christian Group, Chi Alpha. I'm Loving it. I help lead a Core group, and get to Give the pre-offering/giving talk/prayer. Let's just say I'm raking in the dough for XA... hu... ok....

I work at the front desk of the Quality Inn again.

But, most coolly (yes cool has now become an adverb) is that I'm going out with this super cool, pretty, smart.... G

Luther to Rome!!!!

2007-06-16T13:13:00.000-06:00

Hello all, eventhough i havent finished blogging about spring break and the end of the school year i guess i have to start blogging about my summer travels.

First of All i went to Geneva.

I took the train from Lyon. After saying good bye to a few friends (who i will miss way tooo much) gave them my finished papers to hand in for me and then i hoped on the train to Geneva, Switzerland, just next to France. They speak french there and its where one of the greatest reformers, Calvin, started reforming after the French Catholics chased him out of France. He's right up there with Martin Luther.

Here's where we can start speaking about my problems.... Many of you know Im a bit of a space case. Well compound this with 2 nights of very little sleep (finishing homework, and packing). When I arrived in Geneva i knew that i had to see the worlds biggest water jet, Calvins church, and the reformers wall monument (remember this last one.) Well i didnt see the Jet when i went by so i headed for the church which was inbetween there and the wall monument. I walked by purgatory street (i couldnt believe that purgatory was in the most reformed, non catholic city in europe, but the catholics are correct, it exists.)

I kept wandering, litterally, and happened upon a big park. Somehow i missed the Calvinist Church. But i was all too excited to see all the greenness that does not really exist in Lyon, so i took my chance to detour through there to find another path to the Church. On my way walking through i saw a bit STATUE of CALVIN and some other IMPORTANT LOOKING REFORMERS on a "MONUMENTAL" like WALL. I thought, well id better take a picture of that its kind of neat. So i went and took one picture and then left looking at my map for the church. I just couldnt figure out how id passed it and surprise the map showed i was close to the REFORMERS MONUMENT WALL. Two seconds later it clicked, DUH!!!! that giant 100 yard wall behind you with the statues of the calvinist reformers is the Reformers Wall. I dont know if a tour guide could have pointed it out to me!

So i went and took alot more pictures and read the writings. It was extremely inspiring to see how just a few faithful people changed our world so much. If you really want to make your mark in History pair up with the History writer, he can "pencil" you in in no small way.

After that some more wandering brought me to the church. I saw a very unimportant narrow road and guess what i found! Yes the church. It was big and bland, according to Calvinist beliefs. But now that i think about it pretty cool historically.

On the way back i saw the worlds largest jet by accident, and then bought some more swiss souvenirs. These souvenirs cut my schedule all to pieces and so i had to rework my schedule for going to Wurzburg, Gremany to see my friends.

So i made it to Wurzburg, Germany and learned that I should just trust the time schedule they give me at the counter. I missed church with my friends (who none of you know since i haven't blogged about spring break and how i met them.) I did some more wandering after a bus left me off in the middle of nowhere. And eventually spotted the big yellow building where the church was. There were still people hanging out there!

After saying hey and having a pizza with corn on it and trying to find Eunkyung (a korean girl now studying in Wurzburg that i got to lead to Christ), Sandra, Marius and I went to the river side. We played some worship music on their guitars and just hung out and talked. It was an awesome afternoon just relaxing and singing after studying so hard for so many weeks. Some of the songs we sang were in German, which was super cool. And I was floored at this other song in German, i dont know why we dont have it in English. Im getting a copie of the music and Sandra singing and playing it. Its so beautiful i cant even say. German at times can be a bit funny-clunky when sung, but if its the right song its very good, especially if its a german singing it. I also tried to have a discussion with Marius, a polish guy who speaks German, and not too much English. He has an alright english vocab and me 30 german words so between that we worked out with much effort a conversation. Sandra's a brand new Biology teacher.

That night I decided to go look for Eunkyung. Id written 2 emails the weeks leading up to my trip and like i said tryed to meet her. But no luck. I was worrying alot if we would get to meet or not. I wanted to know how her new life as a student in Germany and as a believer was working out etc. So i went to "her" dorm and looked for her, i asked some people and we still couldnt find her. they told me to look in the other ones. And then i remembered that i had been looking in the one that she accidentily moved into. I knew it was the second one that she was in. So litterally 5 seconds into trying to break in to the second dorm building this girl walks up to the door i was trying to get into. It was Her!!!!! She was shocked and so was I. It had to be the best "random" meeting ive ever had. So after many hellos etc she said she had to go give her friend the bowl of cherries she was holding. I couldnt figure out why she just left me outside her dorm. But then she came back and she took me to her real dorm! I wasnt even at her dorm she lives in another just close by and said she had had the "random" thought of "im going to take my friend some cherries" and thats why she had shown up at the dorm. i keep putting random in quotes because i believe that i have too many coincidences in my life that just "happen" and just "happen" to answer a couple of prayers at one time. God likes answering my prayers like that random, how id never thought, kill 2 birds with one stone, you get the idea. God-incidences.
Well the shop is closing down so id better let you go and continue my trip story later! God Bless you! Clay

M. le President or Mme. la Presidente?

2007-05-06T11:28:00.000-06:00

Just a half an hour b4 the French Presidential elections i've finally decided to blog about the race. Things worked out well for me to be here this year.

We have 2 combattants- Nicolas SARKOZY (parti UMP-conservative) and Ségolène ROYAL (parti Socialiste, lib.), seen below...

In the first round 12 candidates ran from 12 parties. This was a bit overwhelming, except for the top 5 or 6, you really didn't have a clue who these people were. I even saw a news report showing a woman talking about voluntering for the election. during the report she randomly picked up a small flyer of one of the candidates and kinda squinted giving the impression that she was thinking "Who the heck is this???" So yes sadly (and hiliratingly) it appeared that she had no clue who the communist partie's candidate was...

Obvously the above 2 got the highest persentages in the first round 2 weeks ago and SAR. 31% and ROY. 25%. The centralis party got 19%ish and the "Le Pen" (rasist-git rid of the foreigners-legal or no) got 10%. The last election he had made it to the second round meaning people were probably sick of the problems caused by an unnamed minority in france.

How about some observations about the candidates:

Mr. Sarkozy

He is down to earth/vertically challanged.

He doesn't smile enough.

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He didn't wear his seat belt after making it to the second round when the paparatzi
was following him around.

He is for liberty to choose to work 35 or 40
hours the people like.

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After a female police woman was raped
going home after work:

He wants to crack down on the delinquents.

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He went on and on and on with out giving many details in the offical debate the other day (of what I watched).

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In France it is illegal for Highschoolers on down to wear Religous symbols to school... Cross necklace, Veil (many do anyways. And…

He is pro-Religious expression.

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Pro (big) business. Laisser faire econ.

??????

Potential to be stuck in the mud (same party as last president).

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He is Pro-America (with a few reservations)

He is pro-War in Iran

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Check out his Wikipedia Article Here.

Mrs. Royal

She seems to have had a make-over.

She has a beautiful smile.

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She was very late for the 1st round thank you speach.

She says keep the 35 hour work week limit and has other plans for fixing the econ problems. (Don’t know specifics.)

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She wants to send escorts.

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She was very articulate, detailed, better debater.

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She is pro liberal values.

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?????

Pro disabled people rights. (France needs BIG TIME.)

Inovative thinker.

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She encouraged Quebeque independence

Traveled to China

As if already Presidente

---

Often spoke down at the peoples level.

I find these things funny because 1) it seems that a lot of what she did is based on things that american presidents did to win (act as if president, Get pretty like JFK, talk down 2 peps like Abe Lincoln) . 2) The French understand politics much better than americans from 150 years ago and today.

Her Wikipedia article Here.

This is the end of my extremely analytic and professional political analysis. Just pretend that the wikipedia articles are mine and everything will be ok (I still need to read them).

Who do you think i would have voted for? Ségo or Sarko? Why?

I'll tell you my answer in the comments in a while.

Et le gagnant/la gagnante est... (who won)

Sarkozy. 53%.

(Did you like how anti-climatic that was... à la francaise. They don't have to wait for the results from 50 states, and then 2 weeks for hanging-chads. Ahh, life in one time zone.)

Porta Potie and other Spring Break Adventures.

2007-04-18T15:39:00.000-06:00

So i recently had a run in with a porta potie. I just got off the metro and was walking to the church for bible study and i had to pee very badly. Well what do you know, France is quarky and they had this nice public bathroom/giant hi-tech porta potie looking thing right outside some Catholic church along the way. Kinda like this. So i went to it thinking it was a pay-a-potie, but was very happy to see that you just had to push a button and you could go in. So i decided to use it since the last time i used our church's toilette i had realized it wasn't really supposed to be used. So on this warm sandle-wearing spring day i walked into the bathroom. the floor was covered in water and the toilet was flushing. i had noticed the giant puddle of water covering like the entire floor but it wasn't until i was useing the pre-pee flushing toilette that i realized i was standing in POTTIE WATER! The only thing that kept me there was 1) well you know, and 2) the constant flushing reassured me that anything bad was well washed out of there. Luckily only my sandals got wet as the puttle wasn't deep or producing waves. I will soon be doing a special on european toilets.

Besides that I went on a ski trip and traveled a bit for spring break

Skiing:

About a month ago i got a facebook message from Liv asking me to go Skiing with her at La Toussuire in the French Alps. Let me tell you it was sweet. everybody else bailed out so it was just Liv and I. So i spent the night at La Saggitare, the residience i was in last semester, and got up at 5 something to make the bus b4 6. We made the bus, i was told i wasn't allowed to eat my cookies, but i could finish the one i'd started.

2hours later and we were there.

We were very excited to make it to the ski area, And eventually figured out where to rent the skis. We looked like a couple of clowns getting to the slopes in our ski boots and oblong skis but we made it and had a blast.

We tried a couple of easy ones then i decided to take Liv on a red run. Somebody tell me how to put a video on blogger!

For the last run i decided to go to the top. when i got there i realized i was only half way to the top! The snow was awesome up there and the views.... wow. I was on top of Europe.

And what do you know, all those little goofy bike signs going up the mountain along the road ment something!

Spring Break.

Eventful is the way i use to explain spring break.

I decided to go to Germany and then back to Paris to visit my host family's family with them and then possibly to see Silka, and Diane, in Belguim.

Well what really happened was this. I bought my tickets late as usual and had to go through Paris to get to Germany.
I toured Paris-Louvre, nobody's friend statue (first photo opp site when i went to france in highschool with my french club), the Eiffel Tower all in the couple hours waiting for my next train.

On the train i met a german fasion desiner editor guy. We talked about France, Paris, Germany, Hutterites, specialty foods and the fasion world. (Best conversation i've had on a train yet.) He was going to do some shooting for an environmental ad campagne in Germany. And the Female German Chanceloresse Head of Government Mrs. Merkel just happened to be expected to show up. Marko told me that he thought she needed to work on her look-get a good hair cut, wear some make-up etc. He was quite insistant about it saying that the woman running for president in France was very pretty. He also told me he was going to let her know she had to change her look. That is his right as a german citizen after all! Here is where you can see his Magazine's site. Click on the pics. (Warning: Some of the reading is offencive.)

I will continue another time with the rest of my trip and the Presidential race which is about to end here this weekend. Segolene Royal (socialist (like demo)) vs. Nicolas Sarkozy (UMP (like Rep.)).

Win a chance to be American... For Life!

2007-03-15T15:05:00.000-06:00

Hello all my foriegn friends. Would you like to be American? Well here's your chance to win the American Green Card Lottery... And it's free to enter. For the 2007 lottery there were 82,000 entrants and 50,000 win each year. Which means that if you try a couple of times and meet the requirements, my guess is that you will soon be American. Some exceptions are if you are from... Canada, England, Mexico, Poland, Russia... But as far as French, Germans, Malagasy ("Madagascarians"), Zambians etc. you have a chance. AND I am totally serious! This exists for reals! Eventhough I'm poking a bit of fun at it... Lottery to become American... It's laughable. But It would be a super smart move for anyone who really wanted to legally be American. I would totally respect that decision. I actually am putting this on here for a couple of friends in mind anyways... so Maybe you have seen the ads on facebook... Avoid them you have to pay to enter those ones. but the Offical US State Departament entrance is for reals. It is actually a governmental move to bring more diversity to the states. So go here, And i will be the first one to call you American...

I went to ENGLAND!!!!!

2007-03-02T15:02:00.000-07:00

Ok so i totally just had the trip of my life in England-London, Oxford, Cotswolds, Bath, Stonehenge.

But b4 i start i just want to let anyone know that i invite anyone willing and able to come backpack/hitchhike/travel through europe with me from a week into june till about a week into july. Plans are right now to do so to spain with a friend over our next break. so i will be a pro-hitchhiker/backpacker. (dont worry mom, dad, gma..... its safe and i'm going to buy some pepper spray.)

Ok so for the trip.

Ellie Bonner invited Catherine Bergeron (Quebec), Stephen Donnely (Scotland), and I to spend a couple days with her in London. This is how it played out... (doesn't that sound like a Law and Order line... sound effects gavel *dom dom*)

Day one. Sat. Feb. 24 Lyon-London.

Decided to take train (minus Stephen went all the way by train) instead of very early bus to Grenoble, then bus to "Grenoble Airport." We couldn't figure out why it took so much longer to get there the way we decided. so 1.5h by train 2 Grenoble in the mountains (beautiful). then 45min to Airport. hmmm must have been out of town a bit... We thought. ha, when we arrived i found a map that showed that the airport was actually half way between Lyon and Grenoble!?! ok just a little back tracking. haha

Landed and Ellie's lovely mother (originally from Germany) Picked us up and drove us through beautiful Victorian style homes (made me think-protestant, button up, cute, different than french buildings).

Day 2.

Went to see decorated China town on the Chinese New Year festival.

Saw the worlds Ugliest statue. (Then felt sorry because its of a real person, and Ellies Mom actually interviewed her!)

Then Cathrine and I went to see Big Ben Clock Tower, Parliment, the London Eye Giant Ferris wheel, Westminister Abbey, and Buckingham Palais. This part was my favorite part of London. Very beautiful, beat my expectations.

Ha, We asked a funny slightly grumpy guard in front of the Abbey if it was Catholic or Anglican and he didn't respond for a bit (i dont think he knew!!! idk.) then he said "The Catholic Church is down the road."

Day 3.

Cathrine and I went to Mme. Tousauds Wax Museum and saw stars and historical figures. I made J Lo blush!!! Bizarrly Mme Tousaud was comissioned during the french revolution to take wax masks of the beheaded famous people. she brought her collection to London! I saw marie antoinette and some others. and we got scared in the spook house. Cathrine scared one of the scary people. she has that effect on people.

Then to Tate Museum where we critiqued modern art. Haha, we decided that the hardest part of one painting was the actually carrying of the 4'by 4'. not the painting of it. they also had a slide exebition. it was like sliding down a wash board. They do things differently in Europe i guess.

We made a 40 second London version of "The Blair Witch Project"

And then i, being known to get excited about moss, got excited about the river Thames river shore. I found lots of little roof shinles, broken China (that could be older than America or could be a discarded fakes from the new American resturant down the street.). I also found a rib. Stephen was chosen to carry my weighty collection. (Thanks Stephen!)

Day 4.

We had an English breakfast down the street, then saw London from The London Eye.

Somewhere in here we went out dansing. On the way home I got called a mean British name. I probably did look like it as i suddenly realized my friends were on the bus and I dived into the closing bus doors.

Day 5.

Cathrine headed back to France, Stephen to Scotland, and Ellie to her Boyfriend. So i toured alone.

I saw the London Tower and London Tower Bridge. Then I lucked out and got the last guided tour through the Tower and then saw the Crown Jewels and the largest diamond in the world4 inches tall 2.5 wide.

Then i sat in on a bit of Parlement-they were talking about hospital appropriations that were made.

Right after that I went to Ash Wednesday service at Westminister Abbey. It was an amazing way to start Lent.

Took the train to Oxford.

Day 6.

Visited Christ Church a college of Oxford University (its like the Harvard of England, very prestigious, you cant even walk through many of the campuses). Saw some other beautiful stuff too.

Day 7.

Visited the Cotswolds-a vurtually untouched country side part of England.

Quant villages. Missed my bus stop but it was great anyways.

Day 7+1.

Went to Bath, England. The Georgian (late 1700's early 1800's) periods second cultural center.

I saw the roman baths, touched a real Roman lead pipe. Drank the Bath mineral water for 50p. Some thought it was really grose, i thought it was a little off, but nothing like the stuff we have at the ranch. It wasn't laxative either.

Walked around a bit as usual. And met some Spanish girls in the hostle. We planned the next leg of our journey together.

Day 9. Sun.

I went to a Baptist Church service and then talked with some Korean students that went also. I love Exchange students.

The Spanardettes and I got on a Purple tour bus for... STONEHENGE!!!!!! It was extremely cool. My favorite side trip out of London. I took tons of pictures. Enjoyed the Rain and Wind (really i was mesmerized). and then at the end the Sun came out!!!! we didn't get to explore just look from a bit away, sad. However, no one knows why they built the thing (more than a couple of thousand years ago). Mysterious. the audio-guide said that Smurfs were one possible explenation... We wont touch that with a ten foot poll. hahaha

headed back to London.

Day 10.

Eventful day. haha I missed my plane since i didnt really have an alarm clock and the airport was way out of town. So I got to learn what its like not having a home. I spent the night there. i found a cart and put my stuff on it an wandered aimlessly. No one to talk to. I really feel bad for people who live like that every day.

I also went to the prayer chapel. that place just wiered me out. it was all "inter-religionational." I didn't feel like praying to Jesus as well as all the others so i got out of there. Nice quiet place though.

Day 11.

I woke up. Then 15mins later i Woke up. Then a little while later i had an awakening. after that i woke up afew more times till i was to tired of waking up that stayed awake. Then i flew out of there.

And i made it to beautiful Lyon!!!

I'll get more pics on here later. i need sleeeeeeep now. night!

A new semester begins!

2007-01-28T10:00:00.000-07:00

Hello, Bonjour et Manaôna. The three languages of my home. How are you all? I miss you so much and keep thinking of all the fun things we have to do when I get back. (June/July) I'm really liking it here and wish i could stay longer, but that would be too long not seeing you all. Keep me posted on what you're all up to!!

And yes, a new semester has started. I've decided this semester to try to take the easiest load possible so i will be able to concentrate on soaking in the French/European life, this includes traveling. For my tests i only have one final paper to do and that's it so i should be able to accomplish my goals and still keep my home and abroad universities happy.

For classes last week I tried losts of history classes and a lit class. i didnt like the classes on Pre-history so i will find some other classes to replace those. I really liked my Cinéma class. We are going to read The War of the Worlds (see pic) and watch the new and old movies. Then i will write a paper comparing the three. It is a 1 credit class and the teacher, a newer one, said she would have me write a 10 pg paper. I let her know politely that that was too much-i have 2 credit classes that are asking me that much. I really liked my history of the middle ages class. The teacher talked super slow, which brought many moans and groans from the students. Sadly french students are really hard on teachers and many have break downs and have to deal with depression and all that. She did say a date once so slowly that you probably would have been able to write it down even if your were sleeping. But she is just trying to be nice because class notes mean everything here. they don't even assign books to read here for history. I think I'm going to thank her for speaking so slowly the next time i talk to her. That was day one- Eight hours straight.

Near my my uni-the tabacco factory. Tommarow marks the day that it is illegal to smoke in in closed places in france. No smoking at the tabacco facotory.

Day two was easier First teacher didn't show up for "ancient french/roman history." Roman history was with the teacher i liked who gave me a real written test last semester. Since i hope to be in Slovakia/Poland in June during finals, i will get to take an oral exam for that class in may. Might as well try it. The teacher in the next class was the opposite of the slow talker. She talked extremely fast, faster than Kathleen when she's really going. Usually i can just switch off really fast french. But her french was so clear-amazing for that velosity- so clear that i could easily pick it up. Honestly i was starting to get a head ache at the end of the class, 2hrs. next day, late for first class at.... noon, went to the wrong class the next time. Had to sneek out-not polite to leave in the middle of class like we are totally free to do at UM. Fry day i had a grammer class- we learned the wierdest rules of agreement. Go crazy French. Basically they just have random rules you have to apply when writing. To add an "e" or not, that is the question. I have a while to figure out my class schedule for sure.

I saw Harold the other day-time 3. He was in the same conditon as the first time i saw him.

The first week in Jan was the commencement of the church season Ephiphany and in France they have the tradition of eating an Ephiphany cake and whoever finds the little toy gets to wear the crown that goes with the cake. Fanja, host mom, won twice at church, Anthony at home, and Matilde and I at her place (she got the bigger one. :( )

I recently bought the first season of Alias and we have been watching it in english and french. very good. we will have to have alias parties at my place in missoula when i get back.

I also have made many book purchaces lately. See pic...

As you can see in these pics, i have started a euro coin collection. Each country gets to decorate one side/or 2 sometimes. there is also a 500 Malagasi Ariary. equivilant= $ .o7

Fact 1: One flash of a digital camera will stop an auditorium of 150 students.
Fact 2: Technically speaking information you get from your class can be seen as "intellectual property" encluding pictures. (He was surprised and amused)

The following is intelectual property of my history prof, so i give M. Cortieu of Aincient Art History the credit just incase.

Here is some stuff from la passé that i didnt put on here because i lost the list till recently.

It finally snowed here, but quickly melted. just like Missoula last winter.

I had to go to the Dr. for a check up so i could get my Carte de Sejour (temp. residency card). After the tests w/ the nurses i went to see the dr. He had me take off my shirt to check heart/breathing... and then he grabbed the little bit of belly fat that i have and said Oh hon hon, ah-tahn seeyun, too much may-O-naise and cola heh. And did you know that in a liter of coke there are 60 cubes of sugar? yes that's fact 3.

I got to go to the Gallo-Roman Museum near the ancient roman theater with a teacher as a guide. Museums are much better with an expert. We got to walk on a real roman tile decorated floor-which never happens. and i got to see a special setup of the ancient Gauls-people who lived in france at the time of rome. They were disguisting people constantly sacrificing people. I was disguisted.

We recently ran out of paper towels... That won't happen again.

France enters the "super-size me" culture, but a little over anxiously.

2007-01-17T07:20:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone how's it going? Good here. I've finished all my finals papers and just have a grammar final on friday. it is so good to be done with all that work. it was very stressful and i just happened to get a cold at the same time! Fun.

Check out the left bar. I added some friends. If any of you want to be added just let me know. You have to have to have to read Alice's most reacent blog and watch the movie. The movie is so touching and her blog story- as Alice once said- Hilarating! haha

My old proprietaire, people who owned la sagitaire, continued to live up to their nickname -Disaster. (from carrier delaster). a couple of weeks ago i got a bill for january, feb, and march even though i was moving out the end of december. I went to the international relations and she called them for me. Opps, we for got to turn off you account. .... Opps we charged you $1200. I love the flippancy with other peoples money there. i actually find it funny (not bitter). God's watching out for me. Another girl, Marie, spent the weekend in the dark because the electric company got turn off happy. I think it was bad communication/paper work type stuff. I dont really understand it all. but it was another opps. Ohh, the joys of france.

I've decided that this first month of living with my family is just going to be a month of realizing my horrible french mistakes and lack of vocab and working towards understanding everything that is said. (ha sometimes they start speaking malagasi to me and i'm lost) But some days i'm like, wow how did you just use that word, you've never used it b4 really, and you just used it perfectly. Alice said her english when she was at whitewater was kinda like that. it just comes out of nowhere. I've been trying to watch lots of french mtv and read. i want to read lots and do atleast an hour of grammar/vocab learning the languge every day.

I live by the black dot in the orange reagion in the bottom right-Lyon. paris is in the top center.

My best description for france at the moment: its like a wierd dream, it doesn't seem like i'm in a real place. Ok later!!! Clay

New Family and random stuff

2007-01-04T05:51:00.000-07:00

Hello again everyone here's some more pics of my new family and a bunch of random information/happenings i wanted to put on here.

The family is as follows l-r Tolotra-Cousin, Anthony (host fam's son), Boul-cousin, Fanja-host mom, Tsanta- bro of Boul, Zozo-cousin, Hoby-cousin that used to live with host fam. (thinking of moving back in, so i would have another bro!), me.

In this second pic is Joshua-host dad, and Zozo dansing at the Malgash (Madagascarian) new years party.

If you want to see the traditional Malgash dance go to:

http://video.google.fr/videoplay?docid=8014207362332942172

Now for some random stuff.

Uses of "French" in our language
-French fries
-French toast
-Pardon my French
-French kiss
-French tease
-French nails
anyone have any others?

Between 1821 (mexican independence) and 1861, Mexico had 240 government overthrows!! thats six per year or one every 2 months! In the 1860's France invaded Mexico, Spain, England and France went there to get back money loaned to the leader of mexico at that time and after France decided to stay to increase their empire.

My host mom, Fanja, baby sits a 1year old ish baby girl during the week, so far the only reaction i have gotten out of her is a terror filled scream and crying.

I got an email from one of the people at the International Relations office here that started: Oh Oh Oh, Merry Christmas... not quite santa there.

I did laundry here at my host family's place and my host mom had me put almost as much clothes in here half sized washer as i could fit in the giant washer at the laundry mat. I litterally had to cram the clothes in. At home we always have to gently fill our newer washer, not cram it. I felt odd doing it their way.

Back home in the US it takes one dollar to do a change of address with the post office if you use the internet or call. its free if you go to the p.o. For just 6 mos of change here i had to pay 22 euros!!! just under 30 dollars! There is a fee for absolutely everything here!!!! I propose an American Military invasion so we can teach them how to correctly provide services!!! Free, the American way. you have to pay 15-35 cents to call a 1800 number. pay about 100 dollars just to get your phone line working (which i didn't even use!!).

You can do your banking at the P.O. but you cant buy a stamp there... Actually you can buy postal stamps there, but the first time i was told to buy an OME stamp (55 euro stamp proving you payed a fee, not a postal stamp actually) i was very confused.

Here is a video of my bedroom, all moved in!!! : http://video.google.fr/videoplay?docid=694803162894957582

I've had lots of interesting meals here with my host family. we eat rice almost every day (Madagascar was apparantely first setteled by ASIANS, even though it is very far from Asia and right next to Africa. Note that some of the cousins above look asian) (the chinese also discovered American before europeans did, they weren't really interested in more land, they already had almost their present size in land.) We also had boiled potatoes with melted cheese over them, just like they do in the mountains. ha

I made about the stupidest mistake of my live b4 leaving to visit Alice's family for christmas. My belgian friend Silka asked me to get her return train ticket out of her mail box and gave me the keys because her train to going home left b4 she would get the return ticket in the mail. I agreed. I still haden't checked her mail when the day she left she left a sticky note saying to give here keys to a friend. I promptly gave them to him so i wouldn't forget to give him the keys. when i had finished christmas at alices and moved in with my french family i got a message from Silka asking if i had gotten her ticket. At that moment i realized i couldn't get into her mail because i had given away her keys!!!! and the person i gave them to had went to paris!!!! What was i supposed to tell her, um i cant get into your mail box because i gave away your keys, you can't come back/you have to buy another one if you want to come back for finals. Yes i felt extremely stupid, and at the same time thought it was a hilarious mistake, just like in the movies. I texted the person, Damien, with the keys. later on i randomly walked into my room and glanced at my phone. Somehow Damien had just called, i didn't hear it ring, the phone answered the call somehow and he was just waiting on the other line. It was so wierd, it took me a few seconds to really answer. He was still in Lyon so everything worked out. moral of the story, despite my complete flakey, absent minded actions someone is still watching out for me/us. haha life is not dull when your not all there.

Last story, the other day after I met the guy who inspected my old room i took my bike home on the metro. One of the security or whatever guys working for the metro came up to me and started half chewing me out for doing this. all of a sudden an older man nearby started chewing out the security guard for "tutoying" me, that is using the informal form of you when addressing me ("tu" is you informal/impolite in this situation, and "vous" is the polite forme). It was kinda funny that the person who had just been chewing me out, was getting chewed out. (it wasn't like a fight or anything). I was very very happy that a FRENCH person had just stuck up for me an american (dont know if he knew that).

And lastly I didn't know they said this in french but here goes:

I <3 ta maman... I love your mama!!

My new address is:
Clay Murdock
49, ave normandie niemen
69150 Décines-Charpieu
France

Cell phone is still: 06 80 68 57 02

Dont forget to look at my last blog, I did it recently. Later!!!!

catch up

2007-01-01T09:37:00.000-07:00

hey everyone whats up? i've been busy recently and have been trying to do this blog forever so here goes. i did have a list but lost it, sad.

Lyon here has a special "festival of lights" each december 8. it is a huge deal and millions of peps come to lyon to visit, its now a 4 day deal. they light up popular buildings and have other special stuff. it was actually a bit disappointing. too much talk not enough walk, but definately worth seeing. they gave 17 century sculptures and buildings a painted look etc. there was also alot of errie music, we kept wondering what was up with the music.

I have a good story about our first night out to see the lights too: Ellie (england), Catrine (quebec), Rita(finland) and I (in order of pic) decided we were going to meet some of their friends in another part of town. when we started our journey her friends were already waiting for us in the meeting place. well first ellie and stephen had to have pizza that took 45 min, then we finally got on the metro but one was comming right then so ellie and i decided to sneek in behind the others who already had tickets, we would get tickets at the next stop. (you can get a 39 euro fine, 50$ if you dont have a ticket) so we were on our way just hanging out on the metro when all of a sudden the driver slammed on the breaks and we stopped faster than i thought the metro could stop. Ellie flew into some old people and screamed, we had a good laugh. then we sat there for a while (making us even later). i guess someone "vandalized" something at the next stop. finally we got to the stop where we were going to change metro lines and guess who was there!!!! Yes, the people who make sure you have your tickets, ellie and i had an inner freekout and then calmly turned around and walked back to the line we had just gotten off (you had to walk by the people to get to the other line). so we went to the next stop to buy tickets, but first ellie wanted to go see the lights in that area, pretty but took another 15-30 mins. then we got back on the metro, bought tickets and promptly went to the wrong metro stop, we had to wait 10 mins for the next one. we finally made it back to the others, only a few hours behind schedule, my american ways must be rubbing off on my Sagitaire (residence) friends. (i guess we have some pretty dang loyal friends, haha) eventful night.

we also went out the next night to see another part of town on the real "fete des lumieres."

for the last two weeks i had also been madly reading a french 700 pg book so i could write 8-10 pgs. Ellie and I hung out just doing homework all day. my laptop cord broke just when i was almost done with the book, all my notes were on it. bad deal, i'm still not done with the paper.

me and 3 scottish friends sang in our chior at the christmas market.

for our last day of fencing we got to hook up to the electric scoring system, that was pretty cool, we wore jackets with metal woven into them and everything.

the week b4 xmas break i studyed for and took a written test over slavery in rome and greece. at first i thought the teacher said i would get to do a homework assignment but the word "devoir" that translates to homework in english doesn't necessarily mean you get to do the work at home! I had to do it at the same time as the others during the regular test time. i also thought that i was going to get a different "easier" test, she had said that she would only be testing me on if i understood. Well i had to take the exact same test as the other students, but i was prepaired. we had 2 hours to write 6 short essays. i did well on 4 of them it was the info i had studied, the fifth was on slavery and christianity so i wrote every thing i knew about what the apostle Paul had said about slavery and onesimus ect. i think it worked out pretty well. the last one asked about some roman emperior and what he did with slavery, i had no clue but i just wrote that he made lots of nice laws for the slaves etc. passing is the most important thing to do here for me cuz my grades dont transfer. i was actually pretty happy with the test, for one of the few times i felt very ready for it and glad with how i did. thanks to the class notes i "harvested" off another student at the last minute and to wikipedia.org. like most french exams it was just alot of regergitating information than actually applying it and analyzing it like in the states. that makes it quite harder, but maybe less bennificial. but then in my UM history major i dont learn a ton of informati0n, just get better at writing and anaylizing and honestly bsing.

after the test i got ready to visit Alice and her family heres some pics of her her parents (german mom, french dad) and a german cousin sarah who is studying in paris.

They picked me up at the train station, alice and i watched some movies of when she was in montana and then we decorated the tree. we spent the next few days just relaxing watching movies, playing music, just hanging out. we did presents the 24th, i didnt get to go to a real catholic midnight christmas mass though.

story: i had a non american experience with the bath tub at alices. it wasn't a bad experience at all it was just different. (americans make too many wrong/right, good/bad judgments about these kinds of things, but then again that's our culture, its just different than others...) I was totally up for the experience, probably thinking about a real french cultural memory than anything. they didnt have a shower, just a bath tub with a shower cord thing. you had to wet up, turn the water off, soap up, turn the water back on then rince, repeat. i enjoyed it, though it was dark (i couldnt get the light to work, thought it was just another european energy conservation thing, turns out the light switch was out side, yea i made it more "barbaric" than it had to be. hahaha). They didnt want me to show the video of their house on their blog, i guess that was kind of an intrusion of privacy type deal. But i'm cool with that, i guess i hadn't ever thought of it. i was just excited to see a french house. I really enjoyed my time their, alices dad, a french teacher, even did a grammer lesson with me. we watched movies in english, french, german. (indiana jones is interesting in german.) i also learned a bit of german such as unkontrollierentes Pubsen/Furzen (said: uncontroll i ert es poop sen/ foort zen......... think about it alittle................ yes uncontrollable farting!!! it was the funniest thing ever to hear in german it litterally sounded like uncontrolable pooping or farting, there were two ways of sayign it)

Lastly when i got back i moved in with my new family the Rabenarivo's!!! I met them in my lutheran church here. They are from madagascar originally but have been in france for like 20 years since they studied in lyon. we have also had lots of their cousins here too. we've been having alot of fun, last night we went to a Malgash (Madagascarian is incorect i guess) New Years party and today they thought me their traditonal congo line type dance. Anyone know how to put videos on blogs? i will get some videos up soon if i find out.

This pic is me making grandma's dumplings for dinner, they were facinated at how you put the little "dumps" of dough into boiling water with spoons.

God bless you all in the New Year!!!! And I will miss you Sagi!!!! Clay (or Cligh as they say in my new home)

Recent Life Events.

2006-11-23T04:16:00.000-07:00

AS IF, Like gnarly dude (or dudette), i've had an AWEsome time the last few weeks. First of all

we had a "back to the 80's night" for our bodacious babe scottish mairi on her day of birth. you can see me in picture one here with the best i could do to make a "boss" hairdoo after just getting my hair cut from an arab guy down the street. (he did an AWEsome job). doesn't my hair look boss? and i love my sunglasses, borrowed them from Catherine. i'm difinately dressed yuppie. i kinda want to keep the doo.

This second picture is a pic of these bodacious babes are stellar to the max, like way dudes. the first dudette is Ellie and the next is Liv. they live with me in our little "corridor." and Gross me out, gage me with a spoon, make me wanna barf, these girls deked me out saying the wanted to take a photo of a "crap" in a pan for our pancake (crepe) night. i guess i misunderstood the accent or the pronunciation and she really ment crepe. we definately busted a gut afterwords. Word, it was funny.

These next girls are trippendicular. they are Catherine (white coat, quebec) and Silka (brown coat, belgium) definately some boss girls to hang with. and they're not posers at all.

Ok i'm like totally done with the "cowabunga dude" talk. (translate at http://www.inthe80s.com/glossary.shtml)

here is me eating a crepe with nutella (at our now offically "crap in a pan night." ) And if you noticed (i hope you did) i have alot of pics up, this means that i now have wireless net in my room. totally cool.

here are some pretty cool french friends i've met, the first is Hoby he's half french half Madagascar and then theres matilde my "marraine" or god-mother (also known as my buddy in the buddy system here). Hoby loves americans and all america is about, in this way he is quite different than any european type i've met. I actually might end up living with Hoby and his cousin aunt and uncle as i am looking for a family to live with next semester to improve my french. it will be sad to leave the Saggitire (sp?) but its a must for my french skills. Matilde is catholic and Hoby "has been lutheran since before i was born." they both speak english very well.

Here is a pic of my french (Alice (a lease)once exchange student at Whitewater high school, only school with out a paved road leading to it in Montana (correct me if i'm wrong, what about pony mt?)), and yes she is wearing a canadian shirt she got from a canadian friend who lives in london. they are gathered around the all famous (in france) map of the united states. it was in a recent issue of National Geographic France so alot of peps have it now. and whitewater is on it (pop 100). big time discussion peace in my room.

Next is a bunch more friends hangign out on my bed under the french flag i bought. you can also see my balcony.

Before: 2 days b4 the school election we got pounded by phampleteres. the after affect was overflowing garbages at the entrance. this means that no one even looks at the phamplets as the get them they just toss them at the first sign of a garbage and dont care if they over flow.

After: the day of the election one party got very smart and put a box out with their name on it to collect all the debris. nomore paper mess. and if i had gone to the election i would have voted for Idee because they came up witht he most ingenious idea with the box. no one reads the phamplets so put your name on a garbage and get noticed while keeping then entrance free from a mess of papers. I was litterally impressed by this. i'm really glad i took pics of it.

well i guess that is all for now, time to start on my tonne of homework. Clay

Russian Holidays?

2006-11-16T05:15:00.000-07:00

While recently trying to figure out how to get a Russian travel visa, i came across this site after trying to figure out if russians had long weekends (non working days). you can travel in Russia for 3 working days without a visa so i wanted to add the long holiday in there to make a longer trip. Anyone interested in marrying a russian woman? here are the rules: http://www.womenrussia.com/secrets.htm

Small French Car and Basicillica

2006-11-14T07:55:00.000-07:00

Hey, here's my appartament when i first moved in!

2006-11-14T07:33:00.000-07:00

Hey here are some pics I am adding pics to other previous blogs be sure to check them and i also just posted a written blog yesterday. later clay

Volume II

2006-11-10T09:47:00.000-07:00

Hey All!
Now I get to continue the P's.

I'll be mostly talking about my trip to the "P"yrinies.

Tuesday night (halloween) round 3am I finally decided on a train ticket to buy. I even used my new "Carte Bleu" my french Credit card with a little micro chip on the front that they use instead of swiping it (they still have the swiper thing though, but they like to use their "Advanced" technology more often than not. haha) Then I packed all the essentials in my hiking backpack and went to bed at 5am.

My train was due to leave at 7:05 or something so i got an hour of sleep and then rode my bike to the school parked it there at 6amish and quickly/ jogginly went to the metro stop a couple of blocks away. I was pretty worried because i didn't want to miss my train for the trip i wasn't sure if i should be taking. I had a huge fear of missing the train for some reason. I didn't want to mess up the trip or have to pay extra (important point) for another ticket if i missed it. I had never been to the train station. So because I didn't have any change on hand i couldn't buy a metro ticket! AHH, i just decided to hop on anyways, that metro stop didn't have the little chutes to walk through, just a few validating postes at the enterance. So i was freeked out about the metro cops coming by, but that was all I could do to make it to the train.

So after asking another couple on one of the metro trains if they were going to the depo and if i could follow them (which i did) I made it to the station. Where i immediately tried to get my ticket out of the automatic distributers. the internet said to do that and my travel book (which is actually out dated, i accidentily left my newer one at the laundry mat. it ended up in a friend's room) said that the people wouldn't be at the counter this early so i didn't even bother to go find the counters. Guess what!!! I didn't know the code to my new Carte Blue because the bank never sent it to me! And Guess what else? that is exactly what i needed in order to get my tickets. so I tried again and again, guessed 3 times on the code and my card got blocked. it was too early to call the card company. So i decided that i would just buy another ticket from the automatic distributers (important!, a large enough chunck of money) And there were... as is the French way it sometimes seems... Technical difficulties. no new ticket. So i was worried because i knew the trains were always on time and i just assumed that i wouldn't have enough time to go to the people at the counters to get help. so time passed, my train arrived and i didnt know what to do. I had missed my Train. This is the point where I go ok God what's up, am i supposed to be on this trip, should i have stayed home and got some homework done (which i'm quite a ways behind on), was i being selfish with this trip and all the other stupid things that go through my head when i dont think i've asked God enough what i need to do for every second of my life. So not knowing what to do i sat down and started to explain to God how crappy i felt about the morning. My worst fear was realized, but i decided to hold on to Jesus. And then at 7:14 i realized that there were people at the counters ("people at the counters" do they have a name? countermen?) So i went and got in line and the lady after about 5-10 mins of looking found me a ticket to Carcassonne. And it was Cheaper!!!! (OK God you win :) ) It left in an hour and i left with a little more money in my pocket. ( I am just realizing the significances of this as i am writing to you. )

So yea got on the train, i would reach my destination a little late but that was ok. We arrived at our first train changing place south of Lyons. Got on the train waited for half an our, went nowhere, discouvered it had "Tombé en panne" (sp?) Yep more probems. Had to take a train with standing room only ( I found a seat).

And i finally made it to Carcassonne, a middle age walled city!!!!!! Beautiful and Old!!!!!! I explored a little bit then went to catch a train for Toulouse (very big french city) . (from here on out i bought tickets as i went, i hadn't planned out my trip, it worked well) I called the hostle (very cheap dormitory type lodging popular in Europe, and in big US Cities too, very economical way to travel) and they didn't have any lodging so i just decided to go all the way west to the Atlantic Coast to Biarritz. I found the auberge (hostel) and luckily someone was awake because i arrived after hours. He went and got the night guard and he let me in a room. Next day i went downtown. (I was in Basque country now, where the Basque people have lived for thousands of years, their origin is not known... oooouuu mysterous) Signs were in French and Basque. They had a beautiful beach and there were people surfing in the ocean. Yes! The beginnign of november. the Surfers were in their wet suits and the people walking by on the side walk were dressed warmly ( i should have taken a picture it was very interesting). I went on a short train tour, got my feet wet in the ocean (while i was wearing shoes, i guess i cant judge tides very well, i gues i'm just a land lubber) walked out to all the beautiful rock formations sticking out in the ocean, saw big Catholic church, went to the ocean museum, ate oriental food, and a croque monseiure (sp) and bought a scarf downtown. I also saw, from a distance, the E shaped chateau that Napoleon III built for his wife "E"ugenie. Then i went back to the auberge dead tired from walking so much and fell asleep.

Day 3 of my jouney i waisted the first half trying to see Biarritz neighboring city, Anglet, and its beaches. I walked half an hour from the bus stop through town only to see that the beaches i could see were very difficult to get to, unoccupide and boringly flat. I didn't feel like lugging my backpack any further. So i went back to the train station and got a train ticket for St. Jean Pierre le Pied.

SJPP is the most beautiful place in the world!!! I took a beautiful train ride up into the Pyrinies (the mountain range between spain and France). it didn't look like much when i got there late in the afternoon but as soon as i found a hotel (no auberges here) and dropped off my bag i went exploring. just a few steps out of my hotel were the steps leading up to the citys wall. BEAUTIFUL!!!!! All the houses were white with red roofs (sp?) and trim, sometimes green trim. The official Basque colors are red, white and green like Italy. I promise i will get the videos and pictures of this mountian city on here asap. I even went to see the huge fort that was on the hill where there were more litterally overwhelming views of the white and read houses in the green mountains beneath a thickly clouded blue sky. I have never been in such a beautiful environment before. There was soo much beauty, i was actually getting sick trying to take it all in. (ha time for a Christian joke... I will probably throw up once i get to heaven. hahaha). I explored that area by the fortress. then i went down the narrow cobble stonned streets and found a pub to eat at. It looked like the menu said something about Jesus so I decided to have that (thinking... "is this like communion?" haha). I was not impressed by the meal. it was a little bit of thinly sliced saussage with some bread and hot peppers. It was good just alot less than i expected. I did however have the most wonderful Apple juce/cider in the world. I dont know what they did to it but it was treated some way to be creamy as well as appley.

The next morning i set my alarm wrong so i left St. Jean PP later than hoped for. That ment that i would not get to go to Andora (very small country between Spain and France. Which was probably alright because i did not have my passport with me. I might have went all the way there to just get turned away at the door. So i went back to Bayonne (near Biarritz) from SJPP by train to catch another train for Carcassonne. During my wait i went to the old center of the city and i bought a book about the Basque language. etxe (say éché in french; means house.) Once again i'm a language/linguistic nerd. (i definately want to take some linguistics classes when i get back to UM.)

I got to Carcassonne after dark and walked from the station to the walled City in which was my hostel. (speaking of hostels they are a pretty good idea, 16 euros a night about. though at a "hostel internatonal" hostel you have to pay for a member ship and 6 stamps(one for each hostel stay) (100 + euros). If you are traveling in multiples of 4 it might be equally cost effective to find a cheap hotel room for 4 at 60 euros (I know for one person you can get a room for 60, i dont know about 4, maybe my advice is missleading, idk.)) As I approched the entrance of the midievel city a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious experience awaited. (yes i did spell that correctly) I'll let you think about what that could mean for a bit...............................................................................................................................................
........................................................................................................................................................................
.................................................................................. Ok so what do you think? Yes as i approached the non drawable draw bridge on that dark and erie night a lady dressed in funny clothes with an umbrella stood in an arched cutout in the bridge entrance. I stared at her as i entered wondering "is this a statue or is it a person who is about to move." I was thinking "statue" as i entered because it hadent moved yet when all of a sudden she shifted, started twirling her umbrella and started singing in the most erie tone (perfect for the dark chilly night) "Some where over the rainbow!" As i walked by I said in a most insistant tone, "Oh, Tu m'as fait peur.!." Oh, you scared me.!." And why the freek was she singing a song from the Wizard of OZ! I had to stop and think about this all just inside the entrance of the outermost wall. I finally decided that I just HAD to get a picture with Mary Poppins. so i went back and asked if she was Mary Poppins, she was, (i believe i had seen a poster that said there was a Mary poppins play coming up or something, that is why it was so easy to identify her). I got someone to take a picture said "merci" and left as she started singing supercali-bla-bla-bla in the same strange tone. It was so wierd, first of all she was french so she had an accent which constricted her singing, then she sang it slowly as someone very pensive. So it was a "Chimm Chimminy Chimm Chiminy Chimm Chimm Charie, A life is as happy as happ......" as i left. It was a very perplexing experience.

(Note: The word itself has obscure origins, pertaining as to when it was first used, but the roots are fairly clear, as Richard Lederer wrote in his book Crazy English: super- "above," cali- "beauty," fragilistic- "delicate," expiali- "to atone," and docious- "educable," the sum meaning roughly "Atoning for extreme and delicate beauty while still being highly educable." This is the perfect word for Mary Poppins to use, being that she thinks of herself as incredibly beautiful but also extremely intelligent, which makes up for it. [by the way.]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious)

So i finally got to the hostel. In my room were 2 Aussies, one Brit, and a S. Korean. All of which became my exploring buddies in The famious walled city Carcassonne the next day (they filmed "robinhood something or other" there.) I went for a walk inside the walls that night. it was kinda scary even though it was well lit. i didnt know what was around the next corner or in all those very thin windows. The next day I ate my free kornflakes with the S. Korean and he asked me what i thought about the book "The Divinci Code" ( i dont remember why) and that lead to a short discussion me saying that even my super liberal teachers at UM thought the book was a crock and that he should read the book "The Case for Christ." Amazingly he said "I will read this book." (did i already plug this book?yes, and this moment justified my whole trip (as did the first Godincident with the cheaper ticket. You don't meet someone every day as openminded about Christianity as this person, so cool) Next, he and I decided to go for a walk around the city. We barely made it out of the hostel doors when we saw a cool walled place where people were entering. we never went for a walk around the city because that thing that we saw was a very important part of the city. In side was the castle and lots of other cool stuff. ( i dont know if it was exactly a castle but it was an important part of the whole city. We went on what we thought was a tour with an englishspeaking lady (she walked us around and talked a bit) then met the aussies and brit who told us that they were going on the real tour. So we got in line and the french guy leading it said we were there at the wrong time. The previous confident-about-her-english french tour guide argued the S. Korean and I in. (go lady with the french berait (sp?)!) It was very cool we got to go on a tour of the ramparts. hopefully someday i will get the pics on here. After that we got an "audio" guided tour with some little walkie talkie looking things. After the tour we all went and tried some common fast french cuisine at a little place not far away from the Bascilica we wanted to visit. I had a quiche i believe and a mystery pastery. After we were done in the city we said our good byes (got a few email addresses) and my South Korean chum and i went to the train station. (of the two asians i have made friends with both had just quit their job back home and were traveling europe for a many-month voyage. They both said they would find a job when they got back home!! ) He bought sometickets and i hopped on my train and headed home for Lyon. I arrived after 10. It was a very chilly night, but the smell of burning wood was in the air (how that works in the second biggest city in France i dont know but it smelled really well.) It was the perfect (though many of us were complaining) way to make it back home.

Another wierd occurance happend when i got on the metro. A friend from my residence hoped on right after me. This is so crazy because we keep encountering each other all over Lyon. It's so crazy. we just end up being at the same place at the same time its like the 4th time its happened.

As far as the week after i got home i made an effort to be present mentally in class and to try to get some more homework done. I am starting to write my history final paper (I dont have to take the real test since i'm an etranger) on the French expedition to Mexico in 1861 that was made possible by the Civil War. I will also be starting to write my Roman Civilizations paper on the person and the history of Hannibal (the guy from carthage, northern africa,who rode the elephants into italy across the alps to fight Rome for the second punic war). Yesterday i also went to my Lutherienne eglise quite late and then invited Minhui (asian friend from church, on her vacation) over for Plantains (sp) beats, bread and cheese and a little homemade (failure) icecream. She is leaving wed so it was the last chance to see her off. I also bought a French flag at the train/metro/tram depot on my way home. I am proudly flying this dare i say "freedom" flag, blue, white, and red over the head of my bed. (I do not take responsibility for any French people I may have offended in the course of this previous sentence. haha i couldn't resist).

I also spent a fair amount of time at the mall this past week:
Bike Seat: 7 Euros.
Seat post: 10 Euros.
Security Seat Post Clamp: 6 Euros.
Hex tool set: 4 Euros.
Loose change needed to make the clamp fit: 7 US cents.
Memory of getting your Bike seat stolen while in your history TD on a wednesday night: EXPENSIVE, one third the cost of the stupid bike!
I also bought hat and gloves for winter.

Last bloggable occurance. The other day I was trying to say i wanted to get more done but i said "I want to be more productful." It took me a while to sort out this last word. Is it a real word? Not in my english-french dictionary. Productive. Sad.

And finally I want to appologize for the length of my recent blogs (if it really bothered you). It seems that i am getting more wordy and descriptive (10 double spaced pages worth). But I am fine with it. I may sound like Victor Hugo, who started The hunchback of Notre Dame with a hundred page background and whose edition of Les Miserables is about 4 inches thick, but i've been told by a friend that my Myers Briggs score says i am an authorative type of person (authorative, purposful miss use, meaning future writer of books.) . And because i am using this blog as my only source of memory of my trip so i dont want to for get even the smallest details as you can see. I appologize if you are bored to death by my blog. haha If this is you, maybe just stick to one or two paragraphs a day.

All for now,
Clay

Party, Police, Pot, Pancakes

2006-11-07T09:10:00.000-07:00

Well I have definately had an interesting past two weeks, and surprisingly many of the things that happened start with a 'P'.

I will start with the first week:

That week I went to approx. 5 parties...

First I had another "Pancake," as they say in Britian or "Crepe (french thin pancake, you know probably) Party." I made crepes in my little room and alot of people from my appartament building came and ate them and left 5 extra chairs. Its becoming a bi-monthly deal. I found a good mix at a nearby store so we make them out of that, but my stove is not that warm, it takes quite a few minutes to make what should take a minute.

The next night the international relations office put on an "interntional party." And, being french, they gave us horrible directions, we went to the wrong place first, but we found it right after that. they had a live band for the first part of the night and then "party" music for the rest, they played really good songs. I was happy to hang out with friends and dance, but i really really REALLY wanted to jitter bug and salsa and no one knew how. One spanish girl thought she knew how to salsa, but not with a partner. I have a long list of friends to teach how the little bit of dance i know. then maybe i will have a blast at the next party dancing with everyone. i didn't get back home till like 4:30 because 3 of us decided to walk home while 4 went in the taxi. i didnt get to bed till 5 i think (that is so late, i usually go to bed at 12 ish).

so i litterally slept the next day away and on saturday we held a birthday party dinner in Vieux Lyon (Old Lyon-its beautiful at night) we went to an Italian place then got ice cream. (her birthday is actually on the 31, the same night as Meg's which i kept saying to my self but it jsut clicked! I forgot to say happy bday to Meg... !!!Happy B-Day Meg!!!) the ice cream came in 4 sizes Simple-one scoop, Double-2 scoops, I dont remember the name for 3 scoops and then American-4 scoops! I was a bit upset that the biggest amount of food was called "american". obviously some people think we eat alot in the US, as in we are pigs, over indulgers, gluttons. Well i agree, we do eat alot and i almost bought the 4 scoops just to be like "heck yea i can eat that all even after a large dinner!!!" but in the end i settled for 3. Lots of resturants like to use the word american to mean "large amount of food". After that we walked across a bridge, that you could make shake by jumping, to a place called the Cavern where they had the best guitar player i have ever heard and he did the little trumpet thingie with his mouth when he wanted "another instrument." Made me think of the Riley and Krysty. Then i went home early because i had to reach the metro and because the smoke was killing me in the low roofed Cavern...

The next day i went to a different church than usual. It was actually close to the lutheran one I have been going to but i took a different tram. I had to get up extra early. So i got there and waited an hour for the service to start... I thought " I dont know why they started an hour later today." I found out later that their real pastor has been very sick lately so i thought that was the reason, but it was not. They prayed alot it was basically a Sing/pray type deal for the first hour and by the time the sermon came around I was tired. Basically i slept through the whole sermon, it was long. Shame on me... then i found out they had a little Christian Book store next door so i went there and finally bought a book written by the person who runs the largest Church in the world, Yoogi Cho of South Korea. Very good book all about HS (really wanted it to figure out some stuff in my life, that book has been a good resource to seek a deeper relationship with Christ and to understand things better, and to follow Him better, and to ask Jess alot of questions... A very good thing, it's called Esprit Saint mon Associe' /Holy Spirit my Senior Partner in french) I also asked the workers if they had the book "Case for Christ" in french but they couldn't find it in their system!!!!!!! That book is exactly what these Intellectual French people need! It proves how reasonable the Christian faith is according to Historical methods, researched by an athiest who later became a Christian because of his conversations with the most knowledgeble people on the topics. If you haven't read that book yet go to www.amazon.com and buy a cheap used copy (by Lee Strobel). so i am very disapointed that we couldn't even find it in French, but it has to be so i will just keep looking i guess. After that the manager introduced me to the 2 new American Missionaries, we ate some middle eastern food and talked abit. We had fun finding our way to the "middle eastern" part of town. then i finally went home late in the afternoon. I found out later that day that the time had changed for fall!!! I finally understood why i was so early for church and why no one was at class on wed and thursday. HAHAHA They only way for me to get to class early is to believe that its the wrong hour. I made american pancakes for some Welsh friends that afternoon (that was another one of the "parties")

Monday was a pretty eventless day, i slept through my night chior class cuz i felt a touch sick and must have been tired from all the "partying" i had been doing.

Tuesday was the last party night, it being Halloween, I bought my birthday friend some chocolats wrapped it in X-mas paper and taped a singing santa candy tube to it. Yes in france they are actually so Americanized in their Christmasness that they had xmas stuff out B4 Halloween!!!! I wrote her a card saying "Fill in the Blank: -------- Birthday! Liv, From Clay. Answers A) Scary, B) Merry, C) Happy. (Answer C)." After that i went to a friend's of my friend Alice. We all dressed up. I was Cesar with a toga, sandals and a christmas wrapping paper/ leaf crown thing. I got some great pics while Alice and I were waiting for the pizza. We also played "answer repitidy questions" (as alice's friend called it-we basically answered quickly general knowledge questions that she asked in english.) there were 5 of us there 3 french, 1 canadian and I. After that I went home and stayed up to 5 figuring out train ticket stuff so i could start my first voyage in France.

Other things that happened were...

A few run-ins with the cops. The first happened a couple of weeks ago. First i was riding my bike down the narrow one lane road that every one rides their bikes down. A cop van was coming down the road infront of me so i decided to ride over to the left side so we could more easily pass. Well they just stopped me politely said that i was supposed to ride on the right side of the street, ok not a big deal, being the dumb american helped. The next time i had a less pleasant encounter with a cop. I was riding down the same road the saturday b4 all the parties that i had. I saw a cop car coming so i moved from the middle of the road to the right of the road. They stopped so i was like " what are they doing?" so i thought... oh they are letting me by. so i rode foreward, but as I did the cop driving turned the car towards the other parked cars blocking me off. So again i was like what the heck is he doing... And then I got it.. their was a parking spot behind him to my left and he was getting ready to back up into it. ( I being the absent minded professor that I am didnt realize that he, going to park, was doing it all wrong.) I also thought that it was a touch rude to not let me by, but then i realized that he wasn't backing up so OBVIOUSLY he was letting me pass on the left before he parked. so i turned my bike around and started to ride by the open passenger window And the cop driving completely lost it, he freaked out on me like I have never been freeked out on before. All that I could understand was that he wanted me to stop riding my bike and that he had something to say to me. now that i think about i am very glad that he had blocked himself in when he did the little block me off manuver. So yea he was not a happy camper, he was more of a crapy hamper if i might say (yes cole i do remember that from like forever ago, do you?) Once he stopped freaking out (my number one pet peve is people who get mad at me for no apparant reason (i guess i should expect it in all my flakyness, but i don't, its my pet peve (sp?) maybe this will be a turning point for that p.p.). And you would think that I being the "dumb american" that i could easily get by with it all. But no for some reason he thought i was French (I had jsut bought some fancy french looking pants recently and was wearing them... idk) and he let me have it. I couldn't get a word in I just had to wait till he was finished and then i gave my 'confused, i dont understand nor know how to express myself in this situation look' haha which I have used to tick off other french people ( once i brought a book back late to the library and i gave the look and said i didnt understand and the librarian at the desk left asking another librarian to take care of me... They must have had to deal with that alot that day...) but anyways once they found out i wasn't french(his 2 friends started to talk to me while our upset little french man cooled off) (i guess i could take that as a compliment) they asked me if i was english which i promptly said OUI to (woops i actually ment i spoke english not that i was english, i should have said no (non)) . and then his two other friends started to explain that i had done something wrong or illegal or what ever and that the rules were the same in england as they are in france. they said in french and english " y ou know the rules are the same in france as in english..." I told them that i was not english that i was american to which they responded... " the rules are the same in England as they are in France, make sure you follow them." So basically i have no clue what i did wrong and if i ever meet a cop again i will probably get introuble for it. I left the situation very shaken up and annoyed. Cultural misunderstanding in a very bad way.

The next strange thing that happend was that i encountered a person high on pot the campus court yard. At first it was interesting cuz i wasn't quite sure he was high, but then it just got down right sad. And again i was just my usual falkey (sp?) self so i took me a while to figure out what this guy's deal was. I had jsut finished talking to a friend (Daimen (spelled right?/From Vancouver Canada) about no one showing up for class when i started to walk away. Some guy did the little psit psit thing, called me over so i went to see what he wanted (he didn't look like a bum who would ask for money and he was already smoking so he didn't need a light (the most frequent reasons French people talk to me haha) so i was surprised) he started commenting on my red "Hermosa" shirt with the little surfer dude on it. he said in quite good english (after trying french and getting the a form of the "look" , i think) that he wanted to live the dream that the guy was living on my shirt. I was glad that he was complimenting me. What a nice french person... I looked at what he was smoking and kinda thought it could be something illegal, but it wasn't obvious because most people over here wrap their own cigarettes anyways. Then Harold (might be a psudoname because that's not really a french name, the french can't really say H's)told me to sit down and read something about communism and Heigels Dialectic (which i remembered from history yea!). he kept talking wierdly. he finally asked me if i wanted some of his "pot"... OF COURSE I REFUSED *taps foot with impatience...* So i was sure he was on something, and since he was so open about talking about stuff i decided to ask him a religious question. I asked him what he thought of God... and he only had the attention span of about a sentence, (its really sad now that i thing about it) and then i just kinda sat there with him going off about who knows what. It just got really wierd, he started flapping his legs and arms about and then i felt really sad for him and really embarassed to even be around him. Needless to say this situation went from an interesting situation to a very sad situation. I really feel bad for Harold. I found an excuse to leave, which was really hard, and prayed for him as i left. Another thing needless to say, dont let yourself be bound to anything like that, you loose your humanity.

The one good thing I got from this last situation was pity. I learned what God's pity was that day. Earlier, I read a reference to pity in an online devotional (yes Joel Osteen if you remember my story about him from my twenty till devotional, sorry inside joke, if you ask i'll explain it). It was one of those "oh that was nice" type of things. Then i encountered Harold as i left i really felt pity for him. I realized that he was like all of us humans. we are all sinners and we are helplessly "high" and unable to control ourselves and our sin nature. That night I was listeneing to my music and a song came on that mentioned Jesus' Pity. At that moment I realized that Jesus has that same pity for us that i had for the high guy. We are all helpless, stuck in our sin, But! God is not mad at us. GOD IS NOT MAD AT YOU OR I!! :) He sees us helplessly flailing about in our self made problems and he longs to help us out, to fix our problems. However we have to reach for his hand in effect saying that we really do need Him to save us from our sins. He is not ashamed to take our hand as i was ashamed to be around harold. The beautiful thing is that Jesus can help us immediately and eternally, if we just ask and turn to him recognizing the same horrible condition that all us humans are in. Reach for that hand! You won't be disapointed.
God Bless,
I Love You All!!
Clay

Time Flies: Up Dated (read the bottom part)

2006-10-16T09:40:00.000-06:00

Hellow all my people. What's new? Ca va? Bien j'espere. I just noticed that it has been almost two weeks since I've blogged. I get in this mind set that i haven't been up to much and then time flys by and it gets harder to remember what happened but i should be able to come up with some interesting stuff for this blog. Maybe i'll try to be like Jamey (sorry had had it messed up) and blog regularily every monday or something? I dont kn0w.

Last week i finally finalized my class schedule, that was an incredibly stressful time for me, kinda like finals week, but at the beginning of the semester. I had to go to a bunch of extra classes to find the ones that i would like and t hat would be the right credit... It has been hard keeping up with my homework (very bad as i have 8-10 weeks for this semester left) I feel like i haven't learned anything for the first while. but on the brighter side I am starting to get better about studying, and being in the mood to study. (i can procrastinate and piddle around like no other). And i think i will really like what i learn.

I've also been getting better at setting some for sure time aside for God and I, i haven't done that I think for a couple of years. I've decided to make it my number one priority. I keep trying to fix all the little problems I have (like procrastination (not just a little prob), eating unhealtyily, sleeping in way to long, not seeing God really acting in my life like i LOVE to see, and all kinds of other problems i critique myself on) but since i've been putting my priorities right (definate time for God each day, not just "at least" 15 min prayer, 2 chapters reading Bible etc.) Things have been falling in to place so nicely. Another thing that i did was to take a week fast last week from junk food, white bread (baguettes) and cheese (these have become a staple for me recently, not bad in any sense but the following). I dedided that i needed to do this because I was over eating and i was constantly getting heart burn etc. not fun. It was hard because since i've come to France i've been eating whatever i want... food tourism yum. So yea the fast and the new mind set (which i am not making a legalistic formula (give time to got=receive what want), but just as something I know I need to do to thrive like i desire to (I come that you might have life and that you might have it Abundantly john 10:10 and john 15 or 16: a branch apart from the vine can not produce fruit. (apart = not spending time in prayer, reading bible etc). So yea i have been getting better at setting aside time for study and diciplining myself in that, i dedided to take less of my medicine and that has helped my moods, no more heartburn, i spent a wonderful after noon with a tiwan (sp?) christian after church (the cool Lutheran chruch here). that was good, i haven't really had much christian fellowship here. And the list will continue as i continue to do what i've set my mind on.

Oh I've also been spending time with my Residence friends. Watching movies, talked long time and looked at pics of moscow with some russians. We had a "scabies party" yea we had an epidemic in our building. I didn't get it, had to go to dr and get meds though. (my mattress is still "sitting in the sun" to "debug" it.)

And I am goign to have to cut it short there, I am late for La Chorale!

Au Revoir,
Clay S. (the french are astounded that americans have "two first names"= middle name) Murdock

Ok I'm back to finish up this Blog, I dont know if it is a good idea to do it this way, maybe I should have done a regular new blog, but anyways...

On Friday I met with my parrianage/french buddy from buddy system. I had already eaten, but she hadn't so we went to "Mac Do's" and she had a happy meal while we discussed my crazy list of siblings (I always have to count to find out how many I have, i know that's bad, 4 brothers and 1 sister). Then we went to her appartament and watched the final episode (sp?) of friends.

I think i tried to read for my classes on the weekend, obviously i didn't get much done.

Oh, actually i did have a really good time with a friend after church, ok i'm repeating my self.

On monday i did an oral presentation on how to get ready to go to college in the united states. It went relatively well, i talked for a whole 10 min (including many mistakes of course). My teacher looked extremely bored after the presentation, ha and there were like 3 people who looked at me the whole time (I think they were studying for the upcoming test). But i was happy with it, it was a great accomplishment. I think i did ok on the test. it was over pronouns. le la les l' en y moi toi lui elle soi nous vous eux elles me te lui nous vous leur. That's all of them (object and personal pronouns that is theyre are others.) Ok now i feel good about spending so much time to blog, i did a little homework at the same time.

La Chorale was extremely boring and repetitive, but i got to find out lots of interesting things about the polish and arabic language. I feel like I am meeting lots of people from the countries where my friends are called to, that is so cool to learn what you guys already know. O and we sang a gosple song too... gosple for 3rd graders. It was quite funny to listen to all the french people try to sound like gosple singers, it was good enough for this song, but if we were singing a real gosple song (I like gosple music by the way) it could have gone south (not to "the South"). It sounded more like a choral song than up beat gosple, it will get better, we dont have a piano for choir practice, that would help tons. Oh and I got to sing tenor (1 of 3) it was like the first time in a long time i was able to get my... searching for word... falseto (sp? sorry cassie becca katleen susie and all other musically inclined) (i dont think i ever used it in high school, i could be wrong).

Oh i know something i did on the weekend! I ate lots of really good "oriental" deserts that i had bought after hanign with my friend after church. i had one box, gave some money to a bum then realized I needed that change for the metro (hi lady your poor can i have my money back... no that wouldn't have worked) so i went to another store to get change, bought some lovely pasteries and they could only give me bills. so I went to an epicierie (small grocery store) and bought an Orangina: Fire (grape fruit Orangina (oringina = orange juice + seven up)) and got the proper change and then went home.

Twice this week i got to see Alice!!! I had a wonderful dinner at her place and the next day we met at noon to eat and do homework. I got to speak lots of french with her Yeah! et j'ai bien mangé. (and i ate very well)

Ok well id better end it here, I've been waiting all day to go shopping for some 'stylish' french clothes. I'm excited.

I'll ttyl,
Clay

Up date.

2006-10-02T10:43:00.000-06:00

Hello all you people in blogger land, how are you!! I'm just starting the second full week of classes. My schedule is almost figured out. And today was a good day for making progress, i could almost understand and focus on most of what my history teacher was saying! I'm enjoying the cooler weather which was not here when i first arrived. It rains almost every night so its kind of like Missoula, but even more rain. I'm also starting to get my bearings in this maze of a university, it's shaped like an eight with classrooms all the way around. I will get my internet in a few weeks also and then i will blog about all the wonderful (and very funny) pictures i have been taking. How is life back in the states/Canada? I hung out with friends this weekend and we went to a very good Indian resterant in Old Lyon yesterday, right by the River at night, very beautiful. I'm so glad i saw that, i was getting a gloomy dog poop marked view of the city from around where i live. Well i had better go, i need to get some reading done.
See ya
Clay

Classes Coming Soon!

2006-09-18T09:13:00.000-06:00

Another jolly message for all you'uns who are interested! The orientation classes are over and i've been dropped like a french tart pie into another gobble of french rouge (red) tape! Time to figure out classes: The averages French student has their classes set out for them depending on their major and year in school. The average American student goes into shock about ten minutes after first seeing the scheduling mess he has to sort through. In stead of one schedule to look at like the average french student, i have six to 9 to look at! Because i am a double major and am picking classes for first, third and fifth semester (2 semesters a year, three years semesters 1-6 in france) I had a much harder time figuring out what classes i was going to take. Thank God some one finally told me that there were multiple "lab" classes to go with the "lecture" classes so i didn't have to worry about them fitting in to my schedule. I was under a lot of stress when people kept telling me that the schedule for the lab classes didn't come out for 2 weeks. hahaha I didn't think the french could make it so easy for me. Salute to French Administrator types who did something the way Peps in the US do.

I will most likely be taking a french grammar class, a french geography/culture class, ancient Greek history, Roman civilization, the mid eighteenth century of French history, Theatre literature of the 40's and 50's and one more class to help fulfill some french major stuff.

I had a fun experience this weekend. I went to a "Lutherienne" Cult (Lutheran Church Service). I understood very little, but I got to take communion and sing in French a song that i know the tune to. It was very good for me. They were a small church with about 35 peps there in a really old church building 189o something.

I am also going to sign up for the Chorale here at Lyon 3. As some of you know from Chi Alpha, i like to translate the songs we sing into French, so it will be awesome to be in an actual French Chior.

In other world events... I finally got to talk to Alice the other day on the phone and I will get to see her on Wednesday!

This just in... Hopefully i will be getting the internet in my room soon so i can add pics to my blog. I need a machette' to get through the french red tape but it will happen.

Salut, A la prochaine (bye, 'til the next.)
Clay

Contact Me!!

2006-09-13T08:50:00.000-06:00

Hey everyone, I got a cell phone and a bank acct. today. I can receive your calls for free, if your brave enough to call me super long distance. The Number to my cell is: 011 336 80 68 57 02 for from abroad and minus the 33 from in France (might have to place a 0 in place of the 33, not sure). I am going to also ack Alice Bartz (my french amie here) if i can use her international phone line and pay her back what I use. In that case you could leave me a message free to you and me by calling 1 800 706 1333 (in US) or 1 800 808 5773 (in canada) then press * follow prompts and enter my Acct # 310 013 6654 and leave the message!! And i'll try to call you back. Mailing Address is: Clay Murdock, 42 Rue des Herideaux, Studio 31, 69008 Lyon France. ttyl,
Clay

Email to Cassie and All of You!!

2006-09-12T03:32:00.000-06:00

ARRRRRRRRRRGGGG, and hi Cassie, (oh and Cassie i will probably put this on my blog also: claymurdock.blogspot.com so hi to everyone else also!!!) i just wrote a really long letter and then lost it! so i will give you the cliff notes. I am doing pretty well here, for past info you can check my blog, but as for recently i've been doing an orientation corse that covers grammer, history, literature and some other boring subjects- but they do take good care of us here, i guess tonight we are going to a stand up comedian-in french. I probably wont understand most of it. last night we had a bbq at my appartment complex, there are lots of brits, some aussies and a few peps from up north ( and my family has moved to canada-citizenship still pending, and i dont know what my mum has done aboot this (hehe) but i might get citizenship up there too. if i can have both legally i guess). So yea all the english speakign people are kinda keeping me from using my french because they don't know french so much so it's kinda hard, i cant be like no i'm never speakign english-cuz then some of them wouldn't understand, but then for my own benifit i should be speaking more, but i think i will do that when Alice gets here. I have some friends going to the mediterranium (spelling is not my farté) this weekend and i might go with them. Oh and soon i hope to get internet in my room!!! and recently i went to the big PART-DIEU (dieu means god) shopping mall. it was strangely convient to get there, just take the metro and climb up the stairs of the metro and you are there! It is a little too convienent for france actually. I think there is some kind of conspricy... hummm... en tout cas....(anyways) I was productive yesterday, i decided to fill my new grammer and word book (just a note book (with many many many super small lines) that i put all the stuff i'm learnign or need to learn in). I did that during my history class. and OMY GOSH. I SAW THE CRAZIEST THING YESTERDAY!!! My history teacher was wearing CLEOPATRA MAKE UP!!!!! She had the black around her eyes that pointed back towards her ears!! it was so crazy, and she had blue or green eye shaddow stuff too. it was quite interesting. O and i went to the dentist on friday. I have a wisdom tooth comming in and it hasnt poked out fo the gums so the gums got infected and i couldn't open my mouth hardly and... it was crazy. the dentist pushed back the gums but the swelled back over the tooth, so hopefully the antibiotics take care of it all... I did it in french too! it was fun. well thats all the news i can think of for now. (feel free to tell me about UM and how thigns are gonig there, i'm not too busy yet and would like to know whats happening!) i will ttyl
Clay

Orientating to the Orientation

2006-09-09T05:51:00.000-06:00

Well I started going to my orientation this week. It’s a 2 week ordeal, but the international office here pampers us with grammar, tours, history lessons, get togethers, and a super cool hand bag that we jokingly say marks us for sure as foreign. Haha All the profs have been pretty nice-speaking slowly and simply so we can understand. Half the stuff in the grammar lessons are hard to figure out, that leaves the other half more positive. (I’m trying to be more positive, for some reason I like sounding annoyed and judgmental-as a general rule annoyed means I’m fine with it and ticked off means I’m a bit annoyed…) I’ve met lots of other exchange students from Australia, Canada, the us, Ireland and some other non English speaking countries. I’ve also been testing out the local cuisine: they have very good deserts! Pizza is ok ( I like the local version with goat cheese on it though). A couple of days I have lived on just bread and cheese (very good meal!) And this totally floored me but when I was walking around today looking for a dentist… I saw a chocolaterie yum! And… Did you know that some places sell it at 65 euros ($100) per kilo (per 2.2 lbs) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Needless to say I found a cheaper store and bought an almond meringue thing for 1.65 euro. O and the dentist, haha always a story… I woke up today with a sore gum swollen-infected maybe-and a mouth painful to open too wide. Yea I guess I have a wisdom tooth coming in and food probably got under the gum and it got infected. I don’t know, but I am going to definitely try to find a dentist tomorrow-sorry Clay no 3 hour literature lesson tomorrow. Shucks!
O and I did get an apartment and I went shopping at the local IKEA nice prices!!! O and I bought a miniature cactus and split blobby looking thing. I have also been trying to contact Alice (my hometown’s senior year French exchange student). It will be so much more fun when she is here-I will have someone who speaks french to speak french to! Hopefully I will soon figure out how to get internet and I will get some pics to go with my blog. Happy Blogging! (click on comment below to comment on my blog)
In the end of this all I believe that I will have a new perspective on exchange students. They are so Blessed and they are survivors.

Address

2006-09-07T05:20:00.000-06:00

Bonjour! my address is:

Clay Murdock
42 rue des Herideaux
Studio 31
69008 Lyon France

I dont have a phone number yet soon;(see above for ph #) but then again you probably wouldn't want to call me so long distance. You can always internet me. I dont have the internet where i live soon i hope.

Dutch not Deutsch

2006-09-02T16:48:00.000-06:00

Well as far as this letter goes I have made it to Amsterdam thus far and it's already been full of cultural surprises. My trips from Billings to Minneapolis and Minn. to Amsterdam were good. I got caught up on the sleep I lost the day b4 I left trying to straighten out my housing situation in Lyon. I sat by a guy from Missoula on my way to Amsterdam- he had an interesting job- Beer tours. www.beertours.com I believe. In stead of art and architecture he leads tours of distilleries. Creative I thought, probably wouldn't be interested in going on one my self, but it sounded cleaver with a touch of intelligence. Well most importantly I want to talk about what I've learned since I've been in Amsterdam. The Dutch are so fun. Their language is super cool. When you hear it over the intercoms it sounds like an American speaking but you can only select 20% of the words. They have a lot of cognates… dank u= Thank you, and you can hear a lot more or so it seems, they say “in” and other simple words a lot. Same with German. A sign in the bathroom said something to the effect: “De toilet spalt automatisch” English: the toilet flushes automatically.” I'll attach some photos of things like that, one sign says no smoking and the dutch is really close to the german. They speak English with a British accent and dutch with an American accent (I even thought french a couple of times.) I've been told that people from belgum speak french with an American accent so maybe that's an interesting connection there.Their r's are a very strong haucking lugies sound. So they sound like a cat with a hair ball stuck in their throught sometimes. Haha Fun, Ok I like languages a lot, maybe too much for your interest. Anyways… My tour of Amsterdam was pretty cool. They have really tall and skinny houses with triangle tops (not the stepped kinds though) which I didn't take any pictures of !?! And I guess they have more canals than Venice. I also went to the Anne Frank house. It was pretty cool to see a place that you learned about so much while in school. The place was much smaller than I thought. When I got back to the airport I decided I was going to call the hostels and make a reservation but I forgot the book in my checked in luggage so I had to wait til I got to Lyon. I was super blessed by the people I sat by on that flight. I talked with the wife (from Arizona, husband french, Edee and Francois) for quite a bit of the flight. I asked them what the best way to get to the hostel would be. The husband called the hostels-no vancacy. Then they just decided to take me to a hotel they knew of!!! They said a cab would have costed 50 euro!! Well we found a cheap hotel and I stayed there. They also gave me their number incase I had any troubles!!

The next day (thu) I ate breakfast at the hotel and discouvered that my french actually worked enough for me to ask the questions I needed. (still shakey but gets the job done) A lady at the bus lead me to the metro (on bus then walked me to it explained all what to take to get to the university and back.) I had trouble at the Univesity-we couldn't get ahold of the people we need to to get my appartament. So I went and stayed another night at the hotel. ( I was going to just grab my bags and go to the hostel, but I couldn't make my phone card work to call the hostel. So after that and after discouvering that I had a giant hole in my duffle bag that spilled out a ziplock bag full of coins, I decided to stay.)

Friday I slept in (minus a couple of hours of the day there). Then when I went to ask the front desk person if I could check my luggage again he said (taking a cue from they guy that had helped me the other day) that they would not take it. “Non monsieur, we are not a baggerie!” That really made me mad once I got to thinking about it (I have almost 140 pounds worth of bags! And they knew that (probably why they didn't want to let me leave them-too much space)). So I had to go to the hostel (couple of hours by walking, bus, and metro-bent my rolling bag handle) The university was closed for lunch (45min), then went to the place to get my apartment key, (yes positive point of the day) but first they had to write a contract (1hour), then I had to go get money put in their account (had to call my bank, then recall to tell them to put the money on my atm, not my purchases… another good 30min) Waited for bank to change all that (15min) Went back to office to see if there were still a lot of people waiting like there was, meaning still had I time, and found it closed. So I couldn't get my apartment… (priceless!)

As far as Saturday goes I woke up to get some breakfast, then took a nap…. Till 4:30 in the afternoon ( 8:30am Montana time). I guess I'm still messed up on my time + Jetlag + plus hauling around 140lbs. haha then I took the metro and found a Lutheran church downtown. Bought some bread, a peach and had some cheese that I saved the other night. Then got back read La Bible a little bit and wrote this!

I'm going to try to go to church tomorrow, I don't know what time it is. Then on Monday I start my orientation and hopefully get my apartment.

Bon Voyage!

2006-08-29T00:05:00.000-06:00

Ahhh, I leave tomarrow at 2pm. (tue, 29th that is) I have a crazy list of stuff to do and stuff i've been wanting to blog about. I have to get my housing straightened out, possibly call the residence lady who doesn't know english (or very poorly, but what am i complainign about, i'm going to learn french i might as well start out now. ) well soon starts a big journey in my life, I can't imagine how much i will be stretched and grown. May God's will be done... I'm excited and scared at the same time. I don't think i've ever been this scared about something. It will work out though, I'm deciding right now to put it in Jesus' hands. My awesome family (well part of them) have been here in Billings ready to see me off for a couple of days. So that's good. I just watched "the lake house" good movie. And as far as future blog topics.. 1) Laxatives, 2) funny family objects, and i can't remember the others (I remember now, bakersfield biscuits) . Ok later, i will blog from France next time.
Peace out,
Clay

San Fran 2!

2006-08-11T22:00:00.000-06:00

Hello again blogger buddies (if their are any of you). Time to update ya'll on my time in the hilly city. Yesterday I went to the fisherman's warf, walked alot, took a boat tour to see Alcatraz island and ride under the golden gate bridge. I thought i got scamed with the ticket i bought for the cruz because it had the wrong date, and it was different than the other people's in the line and because I was directed to buy it from some random person standing along the street with a sign. But it turned out that it worked so that was a big releif (can not spell at all). This has definately helped me relize my trust levels. Back home on the Ranch i think my trust is s 90% (there's always the chance that the family will break/lose something of mine) and at whitewater where i went to school it's 99% in missoula i think my trust level drops to 80% I lock my door and there has been people in our neighborhood lately breaking car windows to steal stuff. But once I made it to San Fran I think my trust level droped to around 30%. I think everybody is out to scam me (like the ticket person, who seemed too slick to be honest; and the indian food guy, it seemed like he was asking me if i needed something with out me knowing what for-i'm not sure why he asked me if i wanted an extra plate-was i supposed to get a free salad with my dinner? Idk. It just seems like he would ask me a polite question to seem friendly, but me being ignorant of his establishment i would be missing out on something.) To be fair though I have met alot of polite and trustworthy people, mostly tourists who take pics of me after i take pics of them (it's a nice trick if you want a pic taken, everyone benefits) Ok well enought about trust, i don 't think there was much point to that section. Bottom line (here i go again) trust Jesus with everything, even that, and even that thing that you didn't think of, and the other thing you forgot about...basically you need to trust him to help you trust him. Surrendure youself to him and he will take care of everythign, even the things you think he is discusted with you with. He longs to transform you so you can trust Him even more, just surrendure to Jesus... Ok now there is some relavance (revalation?) to my blog. HAHA it's all about Jesus-even when it isn't. Ok back to san francisco... so i was dead tired when i got back because i i basically walked back from the fishermans warf, a good couple of miles up and down the city of fourty hills. (I randomly fou nd this how do you like it Meg?) Day 3 (today the 11th i think, this stupid computer's dates are in korean!) i slept in, missing my chance to get some sold out early bird tickets to go tour alcatraz island. Next i ate breakfast in the basement of the Adalade Hostle where i'm staying. and after that i decided that i needed to go to the Golden gate Bridge, you just can't miss that in san fran. so i got some advice on the bus system, took route 30 to the end and got off to start the "15-20 min walk" to the bridge... 2.5 flipping hours later i made it to the bridge. yea i walked way too far for my likings. I don 't blame them it was an easy estamate mistake to make, the map isn't to scale in that part of town, so i also thought that that sounded right. i walked the bridge, the size is daunting, spectacular, possibly more impressive than the eiffle tower... Sorry french peps. and then i walked back across and hopped on to a bus (very happy to be done with my walking for the day) and about the time the bus left the bottom of the map i realized that i had messed up again. funny though i just keep taking this crap in stride, and now that i'm talking about it i seem mad. whatever. I ate at an indian place after i got off the correct bus and then came back to the hostle. and that was my day in an ancient length scroll. Time to go watch Braveheart in French. Later...........

San Francisco Travels!!

2006-08-10T01:44:00.000-06:00

ok I'm living the big city life right now. It's a big change and a definate prep for when I go to France. All I have really seen so far is blocks and blocks of buildings. I got here last night (tuesday night the 8th). Plane rides missoula to salt lake and s.l.c. to san fran were good. talked with a kid from CA on the first (he loved montana, city to country) and i sat next to a snorer on the next. when i got to CA I hopped a shuttle to the Adelaine Hostle in the middle of the city. I took a walk and located the French Consulate and then came back and litterally climed into bed, avoiding stepping on my bunk mate's noggin. woke up the next morning and headed for the consulate got my visa with no problems came back and took a huge nap in the middle of deciding what i wanted to do today. I ended up walking around town, bought some souvenirs, went to union square, rode the stairs in an 8 story Macy's across from saks fifth avenue. took some pics. I talked to Cole (my younger bro) and wandered aimlessly around the streets. took a picture of Clay St. found my way to the gate of China town and walked down it going in all the shops. They had the most beautiful asian stuff there. all kinds of statues, figurines, beautiful clothes. I bought a set of six mini buddas, some chopsticks and a chopstick holder. I also ate some kind of melon flavored bun. and then i came back read a little, listened to a little music then wrote this blog. Now I am going to sleep b4 i go to the fishermans warf, alcatraz, the golden gate bridge and In and Out burger. Night everyone.
Love, Clay

Birthday Presents

2006-07-23T12:53:00.000-06:00

So some of you know that my birthday was at the end of June. I thought i would just take this time to inform you on the presents i got. There was some money from the family and Meg and Becca took me out to dinner. And also Byron and Jean (my great-aunt and uncle, whom i live with) got me a present this year. The best way to describe it is it's a neck stretcher or officially a "Deluxe Overdoor Cervical Traction Set." It actually works, just make sure you don't put too much water in it.

Telephone French!!!

2006-07-18T22:53:00.000-06:00

(Me practicing talking on the phone)
Today the coolest thing happened, like one of my biggest dreams was fullfiled! I was at the Quality Inn, where i am working, and one of the cleaning girls came up to the front desk and told me that her boyfriend-from France!-was going to call her in the next 5 min. I said I had always been excited at the prospect of doing my front desk duties in French-I was even practicing in French earlier that day. She and I decided that it would be totally cool if i gave my phone answering schpiel in French. So I told her what I had been practicing (and she corrected me). And then we waited, giddy at the idea of totally shocking her bf. So some customers came to check in (and i promptly checked them into a dirty room on the third floor... hahaha they were cool with it, I had warned them since they were checking early, but the managers wife gave me a good lecture, and i guess i could have called to check, but anyways...) So while i was pretty much finished with the customers at the front desk the phone rang and i said, "Bonjour, je vous remerciez (and i just realized i conjugated that wrong) pour avoir choisi le <> (ka li tay ang). Je m'appelle <>. Comment peux-je vous aider? Translated: Hello, thank you for choosing Quality Inn. I'm Clay. How can I help you? Then there was a pause and a garble of french and then I transfered the call to the lobby phone 7 feet away from me. They both giggled and then had a nice part French/part English conversation. Yea it was definately the highlight of my day. And as Becca so often says (refering to music, that is): I'm a nerd. And I add: I love it.

PARTY AT MY HOUSE!!!!

2006-07-10T22:34:00.000-06:00

Hey, Anyone interested in a party at my place? Maybe we can cook, eat, play some pool, watch a movie and dance a bit! Let me know what ya'll think-what, where, when...

Chi Alpha Rafting Trip!!!

2006-07-08T20:41:00.000-06:00

My campus ministry group-Chi Alpha- went on a rafting trip today. It was a lot of fun. I was in a boat with our captian Lance, and also Rachael, Holly, Bennett, Jaret, and Jenna. Our boat started out as the first boat for the first hour and then after that we were the last. People kept trying to attack us "secretly" so we had to make up a new pace setting word other than "stroke." So we decided since we were like Vikings we would use the words "UUUF DA" to help us keep pace. Out of the 3 boats we hit and got hung up the most rocks. Yea we were special. We didn't really row so we were way behind the others after a couple of hours. And then we also decided to stop and jump off the bridge. That was so scary. I thought i was going to lose my contacts and i could hardly walk on the rocks because they were slimy and the stream was fast. Oh, and we saw a bear b4 we jumped off the bridge. And then when we left we saw it (or another like it) along the river. We were admiring it when... all of a sudden we hit a big huge rock. Our boat tipped over part ways and filled with 2 feet of water! Someone yelled "Get on the rock!" so Jenna jumped on the rock. It happened that just as she jumped on we were freed from the snag and we left her stranded in the middle of the river on the rock. Haha. So she had to swim to us. Then we met our very hungry friends (we had 2 of the coolers, and we had been taking our time.) I ate my 8 grain wheat french bread with butter, onions, spam, french goat cheese and celery. It actually wasn't too bad. The others didn't believe us about the young black bear, until they saw it standing on someone's picnic table eating someone's food above us! After we ate we went on a few good rapids and then everyone in my boat decided that we wanted to lay down and rest. So we did that for the next hour. We were going to ride by the get out spot "sleeping", but there so many drunk tubbers there that no one would have noticed us. And I now realize that my telling you all this is not that interesting to you, unless you were on the trip. Too Bad! Hahaha

Getting ready to do the France thing!!!

2006-07-07T12:24:00.000-06:00

It has definitely been a fun and frustrating job getting ready to go to France. And God has certainly shown up to show me that he wants me to take this trip. Since I'm a French Major and I love to travel and learn languages I decided that I wanted to go to France for a whole year. So starting the end of my freshman year i started going to the study abroad workshops and stuff to figure out what all i needed to do. I got in my recomendations, essays, and other paper work. While i was doing all this preliminary stuff i wasn't sure If this was what God wanted to do at this time in my life, but i decided to keep doing what i needed to so i wouldn't cheat myself out of it if it was God's will. I also prayed that he would show me exactily yes or no on if i should take this trip. ...
One day during the fall semester of '05 when i was still doing the prelim. paper work i decided that after class i was going to go take a nap on one of the couches in the upstairs of the UC (University Center where there are bunch of food places to eat, and many offices, a book store...). I had heard my campus pastor (Scott Barnett) talk about how he always did that when he was a student here at UM. It really appealed to me, but when i got up to the couches I decided to go back down to the second floor, i can't really remember why, either the couches were full or i got hungry... IDK (i dont know). So I went to the food court (where I had decided not to go) and got some food and ate it. After that I wondered what i should do... I decided to start working on some of the France paper work stuff there in the dining area. Just as i was shuffling through the papers a girl from my campus ministry group (Chi Alpha, see link on the side bar of the main page of my blog) walked right past me and almost sat with her back to me at the table ahead of me, but I called out her name and she turned around and said hi. So she sat down with me at the table and we started talking about whatever and then she saw my paperwork and asked about that. I told her what i was applying for and then that I wasn't sure If this was really where God wanted me to go. bla bla bla (Up to this point in my life i've always been afraid of messing up God's plans for my life by making the wrong choice in something big like this.) She told me that she felt that God wanted me to know that it wasn't like that, that We as Christians had so much freedom in Christ and that as long as we are loving God and loving people as God wanted us to that we had the choice of weather or not to do certain things(she used a story from her life to demonstrate this-God didn't show her what to do in a big situation and he helped her understand this truth about freedom in Christ). This answered my prayers Big time! God always like to confirm things to me by killing two birds with one stone. First of all he showed me that i had alot of freedom and that i didn't need to be so worried about making choices in these types of situations. And because he had used this girl (Faith) to reveal this truth to me I knew that God thought it was a very good idea to go to france. The fact that I hadn't planned to be in the food court at all that day (I wanted to do somethign differently that day) and how God got me down there to meet up with her also proves this was from Him. How awesome and exciting! It is so awesome to have God active in your life like this, I can't even tell you all. This was no coincidence, it was a God-incidence! So sweet!
So I went out with a confidence and got the paper work all done and handed in. The funny thing about all the deadlines is that I have either been very close to the deadline or even late and things keep working out for me. I believe that i even missed a deadline that was to determine howmany students would be switching between franc and Montana, but it still worked out. God really wants me to go on this trip, despite me things are working out!
My plane leaves from Billing, MT on Aug, 29 then i fly to Minneapolis, MN and then to Amsterdam, netherlands and then to Lyon, france where the univesity is that i will studying at.
Ok another cool thing. One of my best friends is going to school at Lyon 3/Jean Moullin (names of my university). Alice Bartz, the exchange student that came to my school my senior year transfered there this past school year. Out of all the universities in France God made it work out that she would go there and that it would be one of the three partner universities that the University of Montana has with france.
As far as housing goes I signed up, again on the last day possible, to live in a dorm/appartament thing jsut a couple minutes from the university. I also had probems this summer with getting my passport and visa. My Passport was locked in a small safe back at home on the ranch (northe eastern Montana) and the correct safe got lost so i waited for ever to have the family open a safe that i thought was the correct safe (it took forever because we didn't have a key for that safe). Once we found out it wasn't in there I applied for a new one so i'm waiting until the first week in august to get it. Then I have to go to SAN FRANSISCO to get my visa because the office in Seattle was all booked up. ( I couldn't make plans until i knew the status of my passport.
I still have many advernture to go through before I make it to France, but i'm confident that my God will make it work out. It's so exciting!

Please pray that God's plans for me in France would be fullfilled. It seems that he really has something up his sleeves or he wouldn't be so present in this whole process. Please also pray that I could impact many peoples lives for Christ while I am over there. Thank You all so much!

Chat Blog!

2006-07-03T21:12:00.000-06:00

Use this Blog as a chat blog. Say "Hi" or say something profound... whatever you want. Just click the word "comment" under this post. Make sure to somehow add your name. I'd love to hear from y'all!

Answer to Question in my Profile

2006-07-03T00:37:00.000-06:00

The children are waiting! Please tell them the story about the bald frog with the wig:

Ok so I've gone through 9 fish this past year. Only number 6 (Nestor, a betta) is left. I felt sorry for the purple little guy so I decided to buy him a new friend from the new fish store down by Albertsons in the middle of town. So I went there and bought a frog, something he wouldn't try to shred to pieces. Well happens that he did get a little violent with our little friend and he bit Tutalor's (the frog) scalp completely off!!! The frog, being a hermit crab cross, got very embarassed about his baldness and whittled himself a makeshift wig out of sea- weed. Now he looks like "the king" and has lost his social anxiety. And they all lived happily ever after....

Explination of Blog Name

2006-07-03T00:03:00.000-06:00

Ok So i guess you guys are wondering what the heck my blog name means. well... Argile Ecossais Wallanklagebank simply means: Clay Scot Murdock in a mixture of French, German and English. It's really simple actually... Argile means Clay in French (The linguist in me will give you the correct pronounciations.: Argile-ar (short a and r makes guttural french sound, almost like when you make a lugie) geel (funky g as in massage l as in luh), Ecossais is the french word for a man who comes from Scotland so: Scot (Ecossais is e (somewhere inbetween long a and eh), co-cuh, ssais-say, NO final s sound!) and now the fun part. If you split Murdock in to Mur and dock Mur (myur) in French means Wall and a really funny sounding and looking German word for "dock" is anklegeband (ankle (ankluh) ge (guh) band (bahnd)). So there is the long and drawn out map of the name of my Blog.